This is another article I'd like to run on a major centenary this year (8 Dec. 2014, the centenary of her loss at the Battle of the Falkland Islands). I wrote this article in its earlier form about 5 years ago, before significantly overhauling it a little while ago. It passed a MILHIST A-class review a few weeks ago (see here). Thanks in advance to all who take the time to review the article. Parsecboy (talk) 20:34, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Image review
Be consistent in whether you use "First World War" or "World War I"
Closing comment -- Don't know what's happened to this one, it's even been listed at FAC urgents, but it's plainly not going anywhere at the moment so I'll be archiving shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:21, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Following on from my success with Operation Flavius, which passed FAC a few weeks ago, I now bring forward this article, on the documentary that ensured the controversy surrounding the SAS' actions in Gibraltar in March 1988 wouldn't die. It caused outrage in the government, which (arguably) led to a total reform of the broadcasting system and the press accused it of "trial by television" and attempted to discredit its witnesses. All in all, possibly the most written-about 44 minutes in British television history.
As ever, all constructive comments are very welcome. Please note that I might become unavailable at short ntoice due to helath issues, so if I don't respond quickly, please bear with me. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:22, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A few copyediting comments.
This is my imperfect understanding of what reviewers are looking for at FAC. - Dank (push to talk)
"Thames lost its franchise": Non-Brits might not get that this means "lost its license to broadcast".
"lost its license to broadcast" isn't quit accurate; Thames was no longer the company making and commissioning content to be shown on ITV. I'm not sure how best to rephrase this. Perhaps a few other Brits might want to chime in?
But to non-Brits? Some might actually read this article. It needs a little explaining, and is there nothing to link to? Johnbod (talk) 01:08, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Thames lost its franchise": I'm not sure if you need to say this twice in the lead.
It's an important fact—important enough to be included in the first paragraph (which is the very high level summary) and at the end of the lead. I'm not sure there's any way round saying it twice.
"decisions which many people believed were influenced by the government's anger at "Death on the Rock".": Some people say :) that "many people believed" is sort of prohibited per WP:WORDS; I don't agree, but I think there probably ought to be a punchier way to conclude the lead section, something that demonstrates that the government's actions had a chilling effect that kept the public from seeing other shows with similar information. (There's also an argument that mindreading the government's "anger" plays into their position. They probably claimed that their motives were pure, but if the question is the ability of journalists to report accurately on the actions of a government without being punished, then what's relevant is whether the government's actions effectively stopped other programs on the same subject matter from being aired, and according to your sources, they did.) Here are two examples, from your next-to-last paragraph: "Two other programmes were made about the Gibraltar shootings for British television, both by the BBC. BBC Northern Ireland produced an episode of Spotlight which arrived at similar findings to those of This Week; Howe attempted to have the programme delayed, using the same rationale with which he requested "Death on the Rock" be postponed. The programme was eventually broadcast, but restricted to Northern Ireland. The BBC's flagship current affairs series Panorama made a programme about the SAS and its role in the Troubles to coincide with the end of the end of the Gibraltar inquest; it was postponed by BBC executives in the wake of the controversy surrounding "Death on the Rock"."
From what I gather, the consensus of public opinion was that Thaggy personally gave Thames a good handbagging, but he sources just say "many people believe" or "it was widely believed" or some variation thereof. The sources don't dwell much on the BBC documentaries, and it's worth remembering that the Beeb is effectively a state broadcaster, so it has a shorter leash for investigating the government than ITV.
"the first such inquiry into a single television programme": appears twice in the lead (with slightly different words). - Dank (push to talk) 17:45, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I reviewed this article for MILHIST A-Class, and have reviewed all subsequent edits.
My major issue is with the lead, which doesn't flow at all well. Eg "The report largely vindicated "Death on the Rock", and found that it had, for the most part, accurately presented the evidence of its witnesses. Two years after the report, Thames lost its franchise and the IBA was abolished." and "Thames lost its franchise and the IBA was abolished as a result of the Broadcasting Act 1990—decisions which many people believed were influenced by the government's anger at "Death on the Rock"." I consider that the initial para looks like it was the original lead, and the rest feels tacked on. I suggest the lead, after establishing notability (which it does well in the first sentence), should just reflect the chronology, rather than repeat itself about the inquiry, the franchise etc. I know this point was made at ACR as well as above, and I think it really needs a good hard look.
One point brought up in the ACR was that Treacy only appears in the Broadcast section. I suggest she should be identified by name in the sentence "one who claimed to have seen the soldiers shooting Savage in the back without warning and continuing to shoot him while he was on the ground" The other witness is identified by name, so no reason not to identify her as well at that point.
Comment -- more of a placeholder at the moment, I reviewed/supported at MilHist ACR and plan to check additions made since then, but I might wait for any edits in response to PM's suggestions. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:55, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Harry, looks like you're around again, if you return to this review and respond to outstanding comments I'll be happy to add my tuppence worth as well... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:52, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Ian. I'll get to this in the next few days, I promise—I am sort of around, but I'm dealing with a lot of Wikimania stuff which is occupying every waking moment and a few more besides at the moment! It should calm down next week, at least for a few days. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:04, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. I'll add comments here as I go through the article. I've completed my review; the article is very well-written and clear. There are a couple of minor comments below, but my main concern is the lead structure.
"Two years after the report, Thames lost its franchise and the IBA was abolished": I agree with the comment above that this doesn't need to be said twice in the lead. I'd remove the first statement; the second one provides context, and in the summary form that a lead provides I think it's more than enough to say it at the end of the lead.
"while tabloid newspapers accused it of sensationalism": "it" refers to the documentary, but it seems odd to me to have the documentary accused of something; it would more naturally be the producers of the documentary. How about "tabloid newspapers branded it as sensationalist"? Or "denounced", or "attacked"?
Having gone through the lead a couple of times, I think the problem is that the first paragraph of the lead is being made to serve as a lead within the lead -- it summarizes some information re-presented later in the lead. I can see that this would require quite a bit of surgery on the lead's first paragraph, so before I go further, perhaps I should ask if there is a precedent for this sort of lead structure? It's not something I've seen before, but perhaps I just haven't run into it.
"were witnessed to park a car in a car park in Gibraltar, which was used": how about "were witnessed parking a car"? And I'd suggest "...Gibraltar; the car park was used" to avoid any momentary parsing of "which" as referring to "Gibraltar".
"he confirmed Styles' contribution to the documentary that the IRA had not been known to use a remote-detonated bomb without a direct line of sight to their target": I think a colon after "documentary" is necessary.
"The report dismissed this concern, believing that...": the report didn't believe anything; the authors of the report did. You use "the report considered" and "the report asserted", which I think are OK, but this seems a step too far to me. How about making it "The report dismissed this concern on the grounds that..."?
A minor point: was the Panorama programme eventually aired?
Closing comment -- Sorry Harry, I was originally planning to recuse from my regular duties and review this myself but it looks like you've too much on your plate to address the outstanding comments already here, so best I keep the delegate hat on and put this one to bed until you have more time. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about...The city of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state of India. Every point suggested by the GA review and peer review are kept in mind and edited accordingly. I have worked on the article tirelessly for many nights, taken pictures and tagged them, and fully restructured the page keeping in mind the previous reviews. At last, i can say that i find this page on par with other featured articles on WikiProject India so hereby i nominate this article. Each and every suggestion is welcomed. Wikiboy2364 (talk) 21:55, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and suggest withdrawal - The prospects for promotion of this article are poor. There are many uncited sections and statements, and the prose requires extensive copyediting. Graham Colm (talk) 07:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you are saying but can you give me some examples? because we both know each and every line in an article cannot be cited.Wikiboy2364 (talk) 09:33, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Really? never saw an article like that. Anyways i restructured the article according to Wikipedia guidelines and request to give it a look. As i said, criticisms are welcomed if paired with appropriate suggestions.Wikiboy2364 (talk) 11:03, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The linked guidelines say "All facts and figures must be appropriately marked up with the relevant citations." And the FA criteria says: " it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate." This candidate will not be promoted unless many more inline citations to reliable sources are added. Graham Colm (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I agree with Grahamcolm. This candidate is not close to being ready, and this nomination should be withdrawn. ceranthor15:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the fictional character that appeared in the television series Smallville. We have worked hard to really exhaust all possible sources and develop this article to the fullest of its capabilities. I recently had the article copy edited by the League of Copy Editors. I appreciate any feedback (no one visited the peer review before this) and support to make sure that his page meets all the necessary criteria for FA status. BIGNOLE (Contact me)18:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Hi Bignole, I'm sorry it took so long for you to get feedback on this nomination. Unfortunately I can't agree at this point that the article meets the FA criteria. There are several dead links and lots of primary or questionable sources. There are also many style issues: source formatting is inconsistent, publications should be italicized, long quotes should be blockquoted without quotation marks, etc. I know your PR nom was unsucessful, but this does look like it needs more polishing before FAC. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:29, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note -- I echo Nikki's sympathy re. lack of feedback but also her concerns, so given the review has already been open more than three weeks I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:09, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I am an IP and I asked someone on the Help IRC to nominate this article for me because I cannot create pages. I will be responding to the improvements, but from different IPs time to time.-- Matthew Ferguson. 188.29.86.17 (talk) 12:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Crisco. I am just starting a new job so there may be a few days delay before I answer any comments, but I am committed to bringing the article to a higher standard. Lack of standardization in the references format will probably be an issue so I will preempt this and fix it in due course. 188.28.128.90 (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Source review - spotchecks not done
Why so many citations in the lead? See WP:LEADCITE
Fixed number of columns is deprecated in {{reflist}} in favour of column width
I can remove some of these citations if needed, although some sources only occur in the lead and not in the body of the article
I thought so, however I was being reverted. I will put it back.
Epeefleche has kindly offered to find the page number in due course. If not the source can safely be removed as the newspaper source will still support all the content in that section.
I am aware and in process of making them consistent. All authors now follow format Lastname Firstnameinitial.
OK, will do.
I am aware and in process of making them consistent
Sorry, what is FN28 format?
The current footnote 28, Liu C, Tseng A, Yang S (2004)., is missing part of its title, and the Google Books link should be truncated after pg=PA533. The current footnote 29, previously footnote 28, should have the publication title italicized. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also I can add that I have electronic copies of many of the references used if anyone wants copies to check verifiability or whatever. 92.40.94.138 (talk) 18:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
General comment. I would urge that all refs in the lede that are not to what is considered to be contentious text (probably all) be deleted, as long as corresponding text and refs appear in the body. Also, I would urge that unless there is a good reason, the refs that are mid-sentence be moved to the ends of their respective sentences. Epeefleche (talk) 21:33, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- I know this wasn't transcluded to the FAC list until 30 June but OTOH it's attacted little commentary since then, and none for the past two weeks, despite being listed at FAC urgents, so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cehers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:35, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about Cal Ripken, Jr., Hall of Fame baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles. No major issues came up in the last FA review, so I am hoping there is enough input this time to get it to featured status. If you find problems with it, please check back periodically to see how I have corrected them. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 11:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. No major issues came up!?! Two editors opposed the article for failing the well-researched criteria because the majority of the biographical information in the article is based on a single book written before the subject's career had even ended. No featured article should have ninety-two of its first ninety-six citations coming from a single source. No work has been done to address this issue since the last nomination; in fact it looks like no work has been done by the nominator at all since that nomination. I am confused as to why the nominator appears to be attempting to engage in some form of subterfuge. Indrian (talk) 18:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem in the use of the book as the main source for the first part of his career. It's a reliable source, and sums that part of his career up fine. There isn't any more recent book on him. If that's your only reason for opposing than I have to question it. The other oppose in the FAC does hit on the same points I saw on a skim, and those concerns still need to be addressed though. Wizardman02:16, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Cal Ripken wrote an autobiography (still before the end of his career, unfortunately) that is not referenced here. He was one of the four subject's of George Will's best-selling and well regarded Men at Work, which is not referenced here. He is one of the players featured in the book Baltimore Orioles: Where Have You Gone? Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Other Orioles Greats discussing the post-playing careers of prominent Orioles, which is not referenced here. There is a book specifically covering his MVP and World Championship season called Oriole Magic: The O's of 1983 (he wrote the forward) that is not referenced here. There is an oral history called From 33rd Street to Camden Yards : An Oral History of the Baltimore Orioles that includes Ripken and is not referenced here. I am not a scholar of Ripken or the Orioles and have only read some of these books myself, so it could be that not all of them contain useful information, but the point is there are other monographs that discuss aspects of his career, and I am not even getting into newspaper and magazine profiles that have undoubtedly appeared over the years as well. By viewing the majority of Ripken's career through the lens of a single author, this article risks inheriting any biases of said author by not surveying a larger swath of the relevant literature, which is not limited to the narrow realm of "full-length biographies of Cal Ripken, Jr." Unless the nominator can demonstrate that these other sources precisely duplicate all of the relevant information on his career found in the single book he has chosen to cite to, then he cannot claim to have satisfied the well-researched criteria of FAC. Indrian (talk) 03:50, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not opposed to referencing more sources for the early part of Ripken's career; in fact, I would have, if that had been in the Featured Article criteria. But, it is not. In fact, if you take a look at Rogers Hornsby and J. R. Richard (related precedents), you will notice that they mainly use a single source for their careers. Hornsby relies heavily on the same book, and Richard relies heavily on Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference, both statistical sites. You do bring up the valid point that, by using the Rosenfeld book so heavily, I may have missed aspects of his career. That is true... in a way. However, this is an encyclopedia article, not a book. This article should just cover the main points of his career; it can't cover every single-game performance or minor detail relating to Ripken . Books may differ in specifics of Ripken's career, but all biographies will cover all the general information an encyclopedia article requires. There is nothing notable enough for an encyclopedia article that would not be found in a biography, including Rosenfeld's. And if there were anything important not mentioned in the Rosenfeld book, I would have found it in at least one of the articles I looked at while writing this article.
In addition, I don't have access to many of the books you list, except the autobiography, which I avoided because it is a primary source that should be assumed to be biased towards Ripken. (Also, Baltimore Orioles: Where Have You Gone? Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Other Orioles Greats would not have helped with the pre-1995 part of Ripken's career, which is what you are concerned about.) However, in order to address your concerns, I did manage to find SABR bio and Britannica bio. The Britannica bio contributed nothing new from Ripken's pre-1995 career, and the SABR article contained only about two facts not mentioned by Rosenfeld which were relevant enough for the article (Drago and the ASGMVP-HR Derby significance, both of which I have added). If you can demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that other sources contain information about Ripken's early life which should be mentioned, I will add it. But, based on Richard, Hornsby, and the FA criteria, this article cites enough sources about his early life to be promoted. In addition, correct me if wrong, but you were the only editor to raise this as a concern in the last nomination. User:Neutralhomer supported it (based on references, by the way), and User:maclean just wanted some articles and books to be mentioned, which I did. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are absolutely correct that we need to be careful about using autobiographies because of the potential for bias, but they can be helpful for early life information and providing a player's own viewpoints on events. Regarding the Hornsby article, it should be noted that it has more than one book source, unlike this one; the major biography of him is heavily used, but there is more sourcing diversity there. Richard doesn't have a biography that I can find, but there are several books and articles that at least show that multiple perspectives were considered. You'd be amazed what any given source can leave out. I just finished substantial work on a broad baseball article, and I'm glad that I had multiple major books on the subject on hand because each one offered something that proved valuable. The book you are using is a great source, but Indrian is right in saying that we need more evidence that the article "is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" per FA criterion 1c. Even a simple Google Books search of the books listed above should allow you to reduce the massive weight being placed on the one book, and perhaps discover new material that would be worthwhile to include. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:55, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did a Google Books search and posted all the relevant information I could find. If this article still needs additional sourcing to reach featured status, tell me, and I will see if I can find any newspaper articles too. I can get Ripken's autobiography, but that would probably take a week because I would have to put it on hold at the library. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 11:03, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have not yet gotten the autobiography, but I did search archives of the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times for more information about Ripken, getting the best results with the New York Times. Would the editors that have commented so far mind informing me whether this is enough to bring this article to featured status, or whether there is still more I need to do? I don't want this review to die like the last one did because of inactivity. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 12:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My view is formed on the basis of reading the discussion - i know nothing about the sport of the literature. If there are, as Indrian suggests, several books that are directly relevant, then that literature should be being surveyed, and a bunch of newspaper articles, useful though they may be, are not really a substitute for checking out at least some of those books. Also, of all the books, i would suggest the autobiography is the least useful - reliability is enhanced by finding other people writing about the person, not by them writing about themselves. Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 12:19, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your input. I already surveyed other books directly relevant to Ripken; this article now cites three additional ones. I looked at others as well but failed to find anything in them not already covered in this article. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 11:31, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did get the autobiography, but there did not seem to be anything relevant about Cal's early life not already covered by this article. However, this article is now based on four books (not counting ones I looked at but found no new information in), and I have supplemented the books with newspaper articles. I think this meets the recommendations of the users that have commented so far. Oriolesfan8 (talk) 11:28, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- Aside from the concerns raised above, this review seems to have stalled after remainiung open nearly a month so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:52, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about a theatrical courtroom drama that allows audience participation in the outcome. It was the first commercial success for a young writer, Ayn Rand, and the last big hit for an aging producer, Al Woods. Actress Doris Nolan, then just a teenager, made her Broadway debut in this play; her veteran castmate Edmund Breese died just after the end of the run. Since achieving GA status in February, the article has been expanded with more content and more sources. I have judged it worthy to be my first FAC nomination, and I hope a jury of my peers will reach consensus in its favor. RL0919 (talk) 22:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Image review
File:NightOfJanuary16th.JPG needs a more expansive FUR
Thanks for taking the time to review these. I've updated the FUR for the cover image, and replaced the dead link on the Clive image with an archive link. Let me know if you see anything else I should fix. --RL0919 (talk) 15:49, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- With no commentary apart from Nikki's image review in a month, and despite being listed at FAC urgents, this review is unfortunately dead in the water so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ulysess S. Grant is an important figure in American History. I believe the Ulysses S. Grant article deserves FA status. The article is thoroughly researched and edited. Any controversial sections are previously discussed and remedied. The article is neutral and does not attempt to view Grant in either a negative or positive way, void of POV. The narration is free of passive sentences, hidden verbs, or clichés. The main sources include William S. McFeely's (1981) Grant: A Biography (Pulitzer Prize), Jean Edward Smith's (2001) Grant, and H.W. Brand's (2012), The Man Who Saved the Union Ulysses S. Grant in War and Peace. Cmguy777 (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Ulysses S. Grant article starts during Grant's early years, continues through Grant's military career prior to the Civil War, Grant's days as a struggling farmer in Missouri, his dramatic military rise during the Civil War, his term as commanding general during Reconstruction, his feud with President Andrew Johnson, the Election of 1868 and eight year presidency, his world tour, bankruptcy, struggle with cancer and the success of his Memoirs. The article concludes with Grant's death and funeral. The historical evaluation is neutral. Addressed in the article during his Presidency are issues such Gilded Age politics, Native American policy, and Reconstruction. Cmguy777 (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Any comments as to further improvement of the article are welcome and sought out. I recommend that the Ulysses S. Grant article be a Featured Article on Wikipedia. Thanks. Cmguy777 (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Leaning oppose. I've done some copyediting in the lead, but judging by the lead, there's more to do here than I'm going to be able to cover during this FAC. Maybe someone else will step up, and if not, you can nominate the article for A-class, and get help with the copyediting there. - Dank (push to talk) 00:48, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Striking that ... it gets better below the lead, I'll copyedit, maybe ask some questions, and hopefully someone can finish up. - Dank (push to talk) 11:12, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"During this time, Grant quickly perceived that the war would be fought for the most part by volunteers and not professional soldiers.": I get the sense that that has some connection to the paragraph it's in, but I don't know what the connection is.
Comments Generally good, but very wordy especially regarding the battles. Regrettably, I have no time for a full review. Some of these suggestions may be out of date, with Dank's edits
Lede
" following his military successes in the American Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military; the war, and secession, ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox Court House." It strikes me this can be consolidated (ending the previous sentence with a period). " As commanding general, Grant led the Union armies to victory in the American Civil War, which ended with Robert E. Lee's surrender to him at Appomattox Court House". Makes clearer Grant's role.
The Civil War did not end at Appomatox Court Court House. Fighting continued for about a month and then there was a Reconstruction period until 1877. I would change the word "with" to "after" for context.Cmguy777 (talk) 05:22, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
" in the administration. " Suggest "in his administration".
Some of the later sentences in the first paragraph may be too much detail for a lede, especially the first paragraph and possibly should be moved later in the lede or deleted. Several items are mentioned in multiple paragraphs and could be usefully consolidated, for example the economic discussion in the third and fourth paragraphs.
"She never took occasion to visit the White House during her son's presidency." possibly "She did not visit the White ..."
Can something be said about why Grant's family was influential?
I went the other way and deleted that bit; I agree that if we say they were influential, then Wehwalt's question should be answered. - Dank (push to talk) 12:28, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving aside Grant's friends, were any members of his class particularly well-known?
"Grant made his way to the front lines to engage in the battle," presumably he was given orders that permitted this? FixedCmguy777 (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
" in a failed attempt to prevail upon the Congress to rescind an order that he in his capacity as quartermaster should reimburse the military $1000 for losses incurred on his watch, for which he bore no personal guilt." perhaps "in a failed attempt to persuade Congress to absolve him of a $1,000 debt to the Army for goods gone astray while in his custody" FixedCmguy777 (talk) 17:10, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
" to continue his service as quartermaster. " this can be deleted if earlier in the sentence you say "Grant's next assignment as quartermaster" FixedCmguy777 (talk) 17:10, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Grant's demeanor had changed at the outset of the war, renewing his energy and confidence." Not sure what this means. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The strategic importance of Henry and Donalson might be mentioned, that they commanded the Tennessee and Cumberland at the point where they are closest together, and thus disrupts Confederate movements and trade there. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 15:46, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I like the way you've set up the discussion of Gen. Order No. 11. You excuse Grant before telling us about it, then after doing so quickly excuse him again. Criticism is minimal and consigned to late in the paragraph, and, after all, it was the fault of "overly aggressive" cotton traders. I think a more balanced approach is needed here. This is part of what Grant is remembered for. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 13:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"refugee-contraband slaves" I would simply say "slaves" or "former slaves" (after all, they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation). FixedCmguy777 (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: McFeely refers to the slaves as contraband of war. I took out the word "refugee" and refer them as "freedmen" after the Emancipation Proclamation. I also added the term African-American to the section paragraph and added more context. Eaton was put in charge of the "contraband slaves" prior to the Emancipation Proclamation in December 1862. Cmguy777 (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"and were vulnerable to" "who might be killed by", perhaps Fixed
It strikes me that the blow-by-blow description of the battles, in what is necessarily a long article, might be shortened considerably.
Comments: The battles have been summarized yet content is needed to be preserved. There needs to be a description of the battles in order to give the reader further understanding of the Civil War and Ulysses S. Grant. Cmguy777 (talk) 00:20, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I responded to all of these that didn't require checking the sources, down to where I stopped copyediting at Shiloh. See what you think. -Dank (push to talk) 12:30, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Good job Dank! Thanks. I added information to the lede covered in the Ulysses S. Grant article. I kept the corruption charges to one sentence. The historical reputation sentence also covers Grant's defense of corrupt appointees and his conservative response to the Panic of 1873. Cmguy777 (talk) 20:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay I'll look back in it may take me a few days to do so my Internet is limited right now. It would be good to have this as an essay that would mean we'd have everyone from Andrew Johnson to McKinley as FA except for Garfield--Wehwalt (talk) 17:21, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You are inconsistent, through the article, in your capitalization of "Union Army" vs. "Union army". 10-3 for the former, by my count. Fixed
Military career
"that territorial gains" since you have not mentioned previously, perhaps "that the territorial gains from the war" Fixed
"spread slavery throughout the nation" I don't see this. It did nothing to increase slavery, say, in Massachusetts. However, it did expand the territory open to slavery under the Missouri Compromise. Suggest saying that, or similar. Fixed
How long was Grant required to serve because he was at West Point? If he served longer than the minimum, at what point did he change his mind? FixedCmguy777 (talk) 06:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: Grant was required to serve four years after West Point. That would make his mandatory military service up to 1847. Cmguy777 (talk) 06:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"to rescind the resignation" perhaps "to refuse the resignation" Fixed 06:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Comments: I used the word "repeal" 06:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Shiloh
"advance at Forts Henry and Donelson was the most significant advance" perhaps the first "advance" can be "victories" FixedCmguy777 (talk) 19:20, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"bivouacked nine miles south at Pittsburg Landing" Nine miles south of what? And a metric conversion, I suppose 14 km, should be inserted. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 22:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"so at the end of the first day" I doubt all this was built in a day, if it was, it should be specifically dated, not "December 1862". I would rephrase, perhaps deeming them "attempts". FixedCmguy777 (talk) 21:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"refugee-contraband slaves displaced" I still don't like this phrase. I think you're saying more than the reader is going to get. It doesn't sound as if Eaton did what Lincoln intended. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It might be worth recounting the (possibly apocryphal) story of Lincoln saying that if Grant was a drunkard, he'd send a barrel of his brand of whiskey to his other generals. Fixed 22:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not too familiar with the events of the battle, but you mention Hooker taking Lookout Mountain after you've said he was already there, sending weapons etc. to the besieged federals. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 01:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: I added that Grant knew a war of attrition due to Lee's limited troop replacement would be successful. This war of attrition, however, was dependant on if Lee would fight in an open field. Lee obviously did not take Grant's bait knowing the same thing that Grant would be victorious. That is why the first battle was in the Wilderness. There after Lee began to entrench his forces. Cmguy777 (talk) 01:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"defeated Early, saving Washington from capture." I'm very dubious that Early could have captured Washington, given the heavy defenses around the capital. Or held it. Possibly overstated. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Although Grant approved the Battle of the Crater, it's not like he thought of the idea. (link needed). Also, the idea wasn't bad, it's that the Union troops didn't advance through the crater fast enough. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 23:25, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Insert Comments: The Crater may have been a success and a failure. A success at blowing up Lee's line defense and a psychological defeat for the Confederates. Lee retaliated by blowing up a Union barge and wounded Grant's aide Orville E. Babcock in the hand. There were many casualties on both sides and the war tended to take a more sinister side using deception. Of course the Crater failed to stop the War. Cmguy777 (talk) 05:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would probably mention that the problem with the terms concluded by Sherman were that they were political in nature, effectively leaving the North Carolina state government in place. It may be explained more clearly in our Andrew Johnson article, which does indicate that Johnson played a role in telling Sherman to stick to military surrenders. I suggest that a similar brief explanation be included here. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Celebrations etc.
The events in the second paragraph need dating. The Swing Around the Circle was in 1866, for example.
Comments: This section has been expanded. Explanations have been given for Grant's view point. Also more information on the Grant Johnson fued. Cmguy777 (talk) 03:18, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"arguing that Congress should allow representatives from the South seated recognition." Overly complex. The South elected putative representatives and senators in elections (mostly excluding blacks) in 1866. Congress wouldn't seat them. Make this clearer. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 22:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Military governors general" I don't recall the use of the term "governor general", which has a British Commonwealth air about it. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 16:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, given the limited relevance of the Baltimore incident given the warfare between Johnson and the Republicans, I'd rather have the same space spent in an explanation of the deteriorating relations between them. As it is, you pop into the political situation now and then, and I'm not sure that readers who are new to the situation are going to understand it. Since Grant was a key player in all of this as both sides wanted his support, a better explanation seems warranted. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 22:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: I added information in the Ring around the circle tour section on Grant and Johnson fued. That is when Grant privately pulled away from Johnson. Grant's publically disassociated with Johnson in 1868 over the Tenor of Office Act and returning the Secretary of War office to Stanton. Grant would have committed a felony if he did not return the Secretary of War office back to Stanton. Cmguy777 (talk) 22:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think your description of the Tenure of Office Act overlooks that it only protected officeholders during the term of the president who appointed him, and Stanton was not appointed by Johnson. FixedCmguy777 (talk) 05:22, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Johnson's true frustration was with Grant's taking the Radicals' side." So you're saying Johnson was lying in saying he thought Grant had broken his word? FixedCmguy777 (talk) 05:22, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments: Don't forget that Grant would have been breaking federal law and been fined. Had he stayed on as Secretary of War Grant would have not been elected President, since he would have been a felon. Don't you think this was another attempt at getting Grant out of the way so Johnson or another Democrat could be elected President. Grant would have been a convicted felon. According to Grant he had no choice but to give up the office. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"unsuccessful attempt to impeach Johnson". Really?
Given that Johnson was impeached, i.e. Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, I'm again feeling that there's more to be done here that I can help with. I'm certainly not in a position to fact check the article, I have limited internet right now. That one is just so ... glaring, I'm not sure what more I can say.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:28, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Image review: Well, all images are out of copyright, but I think we can do a bit better. I'm working to improve it. On which subject, what do you think of this, cropped rather tight, to replace the current sketch of his wife? Alternatively, this shows her alone, and is a better photo of her, but leaves out his children. Adam Cuerden(talk)17:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Cmguy777: There's already a picture of her in there, it's just a very bad engraving that should be replaced; I'm trying to decide which of two better images to replace it with. Adam Cuerden(talk)03:49, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Quick observation only: G'day, when I run the Harv Errors script it identifies a few issues with the references, including a few short citations that don't seem to point to a long citation, for instance "Whyte, pp. 18–39"; "Ackerman, pp. 90–91" and "Murray & Blessing". Are you able to find the bibliographic details for these and add them in, please? Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:08, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how familiar you are with the FAC process, but all of those comments above are changes the reviewers think you should address. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Footnotes should immediately follow punctuation without spaces
"According to Simon, party defections, the Panic of 1873, increase of scandals, and the North's retreat from Reconstruction weakened Grant's second term in office" - source? FixedCmguy777 (talk) 07:04, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- I appreciate the nominator's efforts to address points raised, as well as SNUGGUMS' offer to review, but this has been open almost six weeks with no consensus to promote emerging, so I'll be archiving it shortly. I know this has been through GAN and PR, but I'd suggest that after addressing outstanding points it might benefit from a nomination at MilHist A-Class Review before returning to FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:01, 26 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about one of only two portraits definitively identifiable as a depiction of the William Shakespeare. The article is well-written, well-referenced and covers the topic well. It was nominated to GA status in 2012, which was a successful nomination. Tomer T (talk) 14:02, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Image review
Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
File:William_Shakespeare_1609.jpg: source link is dead
File:Droeshout-shakespeare-detail.jpg needs a source and a US PD tag
Also, while this was not the focus of my review, I noted that there was some material that appeared to be unsourced in the article, and that the citations are inconsistently formatted - I would suggest resolving these issues before someone reviews sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: There has been no attempt in three weeks to deal with the sources issues raised above, and no edits at all on the article since April. Thus, no preparation before the nomination, and no action after it. The circumstances of the nomination are odd, with neither the nominator nor the main contributor apparently interested in its progress. I'd be happy to review it, but only if there is an indication that the nomination is being taken seriously, and that someone will respond to any issues arising from the review. Brianboulton (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This next article in our Scottish mythology series tells of the centaur-like nuckelavee of Orkney, the most horrible of all Scottish demons with its immense head, lack of skin, and breath that could destroy crops. SagaciousPhil - Chat14:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the image review. Unfortunately I couldn't find any freely licensed images - I thought I had when I discovered this but I was a little dubious so I asked Crisco for his thoughts and he also had reservations about it. SagaciousPhil - Chat13:56, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawal request
After recent frustrating and demoralising experiences with two other Scottish mythology FAs, Sagaciousphil and I have decided that we wish to withdraw this nomination. If we do any more work on this type of article it will be away from the honey pot that seems to attract so many irritating insects. EricCorbett13:21, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The site of Reculver has been occupied since the Bronze Age. The Romans built a fort there, and in Anglo-Saxon times there was a monastery founded by a king of Kent. The settlement was a "thriving township" in the Middle Ages, with a weekly market and an annual fair, until coastal erosion and the silting up of the Wantsum Channel caused the settlement's decline. The monastic church was a parish church by 1066, at the head of a large and wealthy parish, and the church itself was much enlarged by the 15th century. It was demolished using gunpowder in 1809: the church is now regarded as having been an exemplar of Anglo-Saxon church architecture and sculpture, and its destruction has caused anguish to pretty much everyone who has written about it, including me. Reculver today is a fairly remote spot consisting mainly of the Roman and church ruins, a pub, a country park and caravan sites, the settlement having been all but swept away by the sea by about the end of the 18th century. Nortonius (talk) 20:51, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The 20th century saw a revival as a tourism industry developed - eww, sounds odd to mine ears...maybe "The 20th century saw a revival as a/the local tourism industry developed" or just "local tourism" or something
and a Mesolithic tranchet axe was found at Reculver in 1960 - it'd be great if we could somehow avoid using the town's name twice in the one sentence....
but this was probably a casual loss - a what? link or explanation plz...
"unique and cleverly engineered" - what was unique about it?
I'd fold the Twin Sisters and crying baby sections into that on the church - looks funny with them coming before discussion on the church itself
I'd remove the culture section and place the communities subsegment into economy
Given the length of the article overall, I wonder if the Ruined church of St Mary segment can be abbreviated a little given that it does have a daughter article.
Watch where "reculver" appears in two consecutive sentences, or twice in the one sentence. I saw a few more -if we can remove a few recurrences it'd help the prose.
Thanks for the comments, all very helpful. I've now made changes reflecting the first four, which I hope meet with your approval. I've also removed some occurrences of Reculver, and will get on with removing more Reculvers and working towards the rest of your suggestions. Nortonius (talk) 19:14, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've got rid of all excess Reculvers now, though I note you've already struck that, thank you. I wonder if the "crying baby" might not fit better with the Roman information, as the focus is on Roman archaeology, and mention of the church can probably be lost: I'll try that in the morning and see what you think, if I don't hear otherwise before then. Nortonius (talk) 22:07, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've now addressed your three remaining comments, about moving the content of the "Twin Sisters", "Crying baby" and "Community facilities" subsections, removing the section on culture and abbreviating the "Ruined church of St Mary" subsection: I hope you find these changes to your liking. I've moved the crying baby into the discussion of Roman Reculver as I think it fits there best. Nortonius (talk) 09:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
tentativesupport on comprehensiveness and prose. I can't see any outstanding prose issues but it is a big article. I'll keep an eye on what others say as this goes on. Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 20:32, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What does it mean to be a member of a Cinque port? Presumably a Cinque port was really a collection of ports but worth clarifying.
I've expanded what was a very slight explanation of this, in the Economy section: I realise that this membership is mentioned earlier, but I think this is the best place for an explanation, unless you have other ideas? Nortonius (talk) 08:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"The walls were originally faced with ragstone, but only very small areas of this remain: otherwise only the cores of the walls are visible". Repetition of 'only' - perhaps delete the first one.
"it is reported that the sound of a crying baby is often heard in the grounds of the fort." I don't think a newspaper report of supposed supernatural goings on is encyclopedic. (However, I see Cas Liber thinks it is OK.)
See my and Cas Liber's comments at the end of yours: I won't insist on retaining the crying baby, but would rather unless consensus says it must go. Nortonius (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Towards the end of the 3rd century a Roman naval commander named Carausius was given the task of clearing pirates from the sea between the Roman provinces in Britain, or Britannia, and on the European mainland." This is sourced to a newspaper report, which is not generally considered WP:RS for history. "the Roman provinces in Britain, or Britannia, and on the European mainland" is a bit clumsy. Why not "between Britain and the continent (or the mainland)"? (Perhaps worth mentioning that Carausius was not just any old commander, but a usurping emperor of Britain.)
I wasn't aware of that about newspaper reports, to be honest; I've substituted a reference to a US university's website. I've also changed the wording and hope you find it less clumsy, and added mention of Carausius declaring himself emperor. Nortonius (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"After the Roman occupation of Britain ended in about 410, Reculver became a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent," Is there any evidence how long after?
Not as such: just coins and other finds plus of course the king's gift of Reculver for a church in 669: I've changed the wording slightly so it doesn't beg this question, any good? Nortonius (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"King Æthelberht of Kent was traditionally said to have moved his royal court there from Canterbury in about 597, for example by John Duncombe in 1784,[42] and to have built a palace on the site of the Roman ruins;[43] but, while archaeological excavation has shown no evidence of this, Æthelberht's household would have been peripatetic, and the story has been described as probably a "pious legend"." This is a bit confusing. I would suggest something like "Antiquarians such as the eighteenth century clergyman John Duncombe said that King Æthelberht of Kent moved his royal court there from Canterbury in about 597, and built a palace on the site of the Roman ruins.[43] However, archaeological excavation has shown no evidence of this; Æthelberht's household would have been peripatetic, and the story has been described as probably a "pious legend".
Decline from 829 residents in 1931 census to about 20 in 2005. I think it is worth explaining in the main text, not just a note, that the apparent decline is (partly?) due to holidaymakers being included in the census.
I guess I think of the ghost bit as a sprinkling of engaging folklore to make the article more engaging - and assume most readers understand that (i.e. not hard science or medicine). Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 23:40, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, my thoughts exactly: the crying baby was in the article when I first got involved with it,[2] and I've kept it in for the reason you give, though I've got no huge objection to losing it, if such a consensus develops here. A problem is that, while there clearly is some folklore involved (I mean that in a positive sense), it's not mentioned by any "proper" source I've been able to find; only in passing by books such as Folklore of Kent, which is more a collection of tales than an anthropological study. I could add that, but I don't have access to a physical copy and the online preview has no page numbers. Nortonius (talk) 08:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are different views on the place of light relief. I reluctantly removed a quote from Æthelstan's biographer saying that any man whose father had given him 8 or 9 sisters deserves our sympathy (because an editor objected to it as irrelevant). The problem with this folklore is that while most readers will not take it seriously, some will. I have reverted a number of edits by believers, and I don't think we should be encouraging them. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:29, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it's a tricky area: I've done a bit to try to keep Wild Hunt under some control, but Folk memory, while in a very sad state IMHO, has what looks like a smattering of decent sources. If any of the WP:RS sources I've used had made any of mention of it in that sort of context, then I'd be inclined to defend its corner a little more firmly, as then it would be anthropology rather than ghost story; but they haven't, so, as I say, I don't intend to, if consensus goes that way. The insight re Æthelstan's sisters is helpful in that regard, thanks, I'll bear it in mind. Nortonius (talk) 22:51, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's worth noting that "the Mermaid of Padstow" merits mention in the lead and an entire section in the FA for Doom Bar, promoted in April last year: apparently she created the Doom Bar! And "a wailing cry is sometimes heard on the Doombar after a fearful gale". The sources are "tales", and this wasn't seriously questioned at the FAC, only the details of the story; the fact that John Betjeman wrote about it 60 years after the first cited publication probably helped. A single mention of a crying baby here seems completely harmless to me, not to mention more encyclopedic by comparison. On the other hand, I've looked quite hard (online) for a good source for the crying baby, and so far have only turned up further tales; I should be getting sight of something published by English Heritage soon. Nortonius (talk) 10:38, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I just got sight of said EH publication, and added it as a ref. The relevant passage in the book says: "Many hauntings have been reported [at Reculver], notably the cries of a baby, reputed to have been buried alive as a sacrifice by the Romans when they built [the fort]. Excavations some years ago discovered the skeletons of 11 babies within the ruins." This is probably my last throw in this direction, any thoughts? Anyone? Nortonius (talk) 12:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, your homework probably qualifies it for retention :-) I think the wording makes it sound more jarring than need be. Can I suggest changing the latter part of the para to something like: "The babies were probably buried in the buildings as ritual sacrifices, but it is unknown whether they were selected for burial because they were already dead, perhaps stillborn, or if they were buried alive or killed for the purpose;[36][Fn 7] a local tale subsequently developed that the grounds of the fort were haunted by the sound of a crying baby." hamiltonstone (talk) 13:31, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, hamiltonstone! Jarring noted and paragraph tweaked, using almost exactly your version. Of course I'll have to wait and see what the final word is on this: I very much appreciate the feedback either way. Nortonius (talk) 16:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I truly don't want to labour this point, but I just remembered something that was in the back of my mind when I mentioned "folk memory" previously, and would've indicated then if I'd thought of it: there's a perfectly well sourced mention of folk memory at Walkington Wold burials (IMHO – be warned, I added the quotation & ref![3]), in reference to a local name for a burial mound as "Hell's Gate", if you feel inclined to look. It isn't in a FA, but the sourcing and inclusion are thoroughly sound in my view, and parallel what I have in mind here – would that there were such a source for Reculver! I totally agree that we don't want to encourage "believers", they make me shudder; but folk memory, as opposed to superstition, is taken seriously in other circles. Make of that what you will. Nortonius (talk) 17:13, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Image review
File:OldMapKent.jpg: what is the author's date of death? What was the publication date of the atlas?
File:1685mapRoachS.jpg needs US PD tag
File:Reculver1800.jpg: source link is dead, needs US PD tag
SupportComment from Hamiltonstone
A long article, so don't know how much of it I will get to. For now, just history and governance:
"The plaque effectively records the establishment of the fort, since it records the construction..." - needs a copyedit to avoid repetition of "records".
I'm not convinced the inclusion of the Richmond quote is entirely helpful. it tells us two things. First, "this [was] the first time the inscribed phrase aedes principiorum [could] be ... identified with the official shrine of [a Roman military] headquarters building..." However, we do not know what an aedes principiorum is, it isn't linked, and we don't understand why that is important. Second, we are told that this was "the first certain ... application of the name basilica to a [Roman] military cross-hall". However, we aren't told what a cross-hall is or why it is significant. I would ditch the quote and craft a sentence that will more successfully explain to the reader why this matters.
I'm unsure about this. Per the quotation, the "aedes principiorum [could] be ... identified with the official shrine": the word "shrine" occurs and is linked in the preceding sentence, as is the related word "sacellum"; for "basilica" I agree it's less clear, although the word is also linked in the preceding sentence: perhaps the quotation might be changed to read "the first certain ... application of the name basilica to [this principal feature of such a building]", or something similar? The "cross-hall" is the basilica, so can be lost here. I've included the quotation to explain the use of the words "uniquely detailed" in relation to the plaque, which is clearly an important find; but I'm willing to integrate the information into the text if you'd still prefer it. Nortonius (talk) 13:20, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"it is reported that the sound of a crying baby is often heard in the grounds of the fort". This seems a bit ridiculous, placing such a superstition alongside all the archaeological information, as though they belonged together. And is it really of sufficient significance to be included in a summary encyclopedia article?
You are not alone in thinking this, and it may well be ditched. You might look at comments above from Cas Liber, Dudley Miles and me. Nortonius (talk) 13:20, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"The parishes of Herne and, on the Isle of Thanet, St Nicholas-at-Wade were created from parts of Reculver parish in 1310..." missing comma after St Nicholas-at-Wade?
"Included were Hillborough, Bishopstone and Brook (now Brook Farm), and the parish extended west almost to Beltinge, in Herne parish, and to Broomfield in the south-west – where the boundary with Herne parish ran along the centre of the main thoroughfare, now Margate Road – and it was bounded in open country on the south-east and east by the parish of Chislet." Too many clauses and "and"s. Split into at least two sentences.
Given how large is the European Parliamentary constituency, and how tiny Reculver is in that context, the spelling out of the names of all the representatives is not appropriate - it gives a misleading impression that Reculver might have played a substantive role in the election of these particular people. The article should simply state "For European elections Reculver is in the South East England constituency."
Can someone check the Rollason 1979 article in the biblio - there's something wrong with the journal volume number - is it just a stray space, or have volume and issue numbers become confused?
Geography: "These rocks are easily washed away by the sea" - a sentence shouldn't begin with "these", it needs to state the subject. Alternatively, run this para on to the previous one. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:24, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"From April 2001 to March 2002 the average gross weekly income of households in the electoral ward of Reculver... was estimated by the Office for National Statistics as £560, or £29,120 per year". Can the national average be supplied so the reader can ascribe some meaning to these figures?
I've added the average for the south-east of England excluding London: for some reason the ONS doesn't seem to have provided a national average for the period in question (2001–02), not that I've found yet anyway... I think these figures are available for the 2011 census, but as the article says the census area was different then from that for 2001 and comparable figures for Reculver, as opposed to the ward it's in, are unavailable. Or so I've found. It's possible to generate at least some comparable statistics on the ONS website, but not in a way that can be cited. I asked about this at WikiProject UK geography on 3 May, but I've had no response.[8]Nortonius (talk) 12:05, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Initial comment after a first read-through: you have "tesselated" in two different quotations. The OED, Chambers and Collins are unanimous in admitting only "tessellated", and I wonder if the two "tesselateds" are typos. More soonest, though it may take me a little time to do justice to this substantial article. – Tim riley talk09:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thank you. Spellings in both quotations are as per the sources; though you did help me spot a missing "l" in a piped wikilink! Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 09:57, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How strange! Too trivial for a (sic), so I move on to...
Support
A few minor comments, which pray ponder and accept or reject as you prefer:
Prehistoric and Roman
"This was followed by a Roman "fortlet" dating to their conquest of Britain" – "their" meaning the Romans, and really it would be correct to use the noun rather than the pronoun here. On the other hand there would be three "Roman"s in one sentence. Perhaps something like, "This was followed by a "fortlet" built by the Romans during their conquest of Britain"?
"the sea defences had proven counter-productive" – "proven" is good Scots or American, but "proved" is better English English, I'd say.
Interesting! I wonder why "proven" seems right to me, born in London and having lived there or to the south for all but three years spent in Yorkshire... I would happily change it if you'd really rather. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also interesting! To me it looks like nothing more than a way of producing a simpler sentence (fewer commas for one thing), I'm surprised to read the arguments heaped upon it in the article to which you link (I'm not saying they're wrong!); and "parish clerk" is a recognised term of long standing in parochial administration, rather than describing someone who does a bit of clerking. A grey area then, perhaps. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"they were won by the existing holders" – I'm sure you'll be keeping a paternal (making assumptions from your "–ius" username) eye on this article in years to come, and so my mentioning WP:DATED is just a formality, but I mention it nonetheless.
Your assumptions are correct – I've been keeping an eye on this article for years now. I thought it a useful piece of information; any change will see it gone, of course. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Economy
"The value to the reader of blue-linking of oysters and lobsters seems to me debatable, and surely linking coal is a link too far?
Fine, I've lost the link for coal! I was probably thinking of Curlews etc. when linking oysters and lobsters, and still think they can be useful links. About coal, I was probably on wikilink autopilot, maybe thinking about how rarely it is encountered in daily life now. Or something. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Transport
"In the 16th century, oysters dredged at Reculver were reported as better than any in Kent" – you've told us this before
Yes, I'm aware of some repetition in the article, you might spot more; somewhere along the line, interacting with other editors, I got the idea that some repetition is inevitable. I think you're right about this example though, and it's gone. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OVERLINK – "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead." There are a few blue links in the article that transgress this rule: manorial, coastal erosion, Cinque Port, Sandwich, Margate, Ecgberht of Kent, Trinity House, navigational aid, groynes, Wantsum Channel, St Mary, All Saints, Shuart, Second World War, Eadberht II and Æthelberht I.
Yes, I've checked duplicate links and tried to be judicious in keeping them: given the length of the article, I've wanted to save readers from too much scrolling in search of a link.
There are a couple of places where the article seems to me to be too focused on the here and now – Education was the other one apart from Governance.
I see what you mean about Education. My track record seems to be that, if there were anything more historical to say about education at Reculver, I'd probably have written too much about it: I don't remember seeing anything. I'm not sure what you mean about Governance though; I was worried it focused too much on the history! If you'd care to clarify...? No problem if not, of course. Nortonius (talk) 13:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, got you. Somehow I acquired an impression that this sort of detail is expected in a comprehensive WP article about a UK place. I don't find it too arduous to keep up with events, but you have got me wondering about how else this aspect of governance might be approached. Simply stating the ward and constituencies might be an obvious solution, but it feels lazy to me! If you think I'm just making a rod for my own back, on the other hand...?! Nortonius (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
None of these points seem to me serious enough to withhold my support for the promotion of this impressive article. The prose is admirable, the coverage full without being excessive, the treatment is neutral and the sourcing and citation are impeccable. A formidable piece of work. – Tim riley talk12:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"After the Romans left Britain early in the 5th century, Reculver became a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent." This implies it was soon afterwards. I would prefer something like "The Romans left Britain early in the 5th century, and by the 7th century Reculver had become a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent."
Yes, I should have updated this after a recent clarification in the main text, thanks for pointing it out. I hope you think the new wording works. Nortonius (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
""extensive phased settlement" I think phased should either be explained or left out. Does it mean a settlement which came and went in phases?
I've taken "phased" out and removed quotation marks – I think the phasing is probably obvious, given that the Bronze and Iron Ages are mentioned in relation to the settlement. Nortonius (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The wording implies that the crying baby was based on infant burials, but if the tale is ancient and the burials were found by modern archaeologists, is the connection plausible? I would still prefer to leave the story out.
Preference noted! I feel I've made a case for keeping it, but it occurs to me that I really wouldn't be bothered if it were relegated to a footnote – I could do that if you'd really rather? Wouldn't the connection be more plausible if the tale predated discovery of the skeletons? In truth I have no idea of the chronological relationship, for all the fact-hunting I've done. Nortonius (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So in the evening the archaeologists went down to the pub and told the locals about their gruesome discoveries, and for a joke someone made up the story about the crying baby. It could have happened that way. I don't think the story should be in the article as you don't have a reliable source that it is a genuine ancient traditon. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your position, and I very much appreciate your support for this FAC in spite of your dislike of this detail. Something like your pub scenario had occurred to me as a possibility too; but I don't think it makes any material difference. The scenario regarding the tales in the Doom Bar FA, to which I alluded previously, is much the same – shipwrecks occur followed by tales of wailing cries; and I have found a WP:RS for the existence of the Reculver tale. Equally, I think this tale is no less relevant than the legend that grew up around the "Twin Sisters" byname: whether we like it or not, it's out there now. On the other hand it occurs to me that I would probably have given up the crying baby by now, given your strong dislike of it; but a difficulty I have is that, while I previously indicated a willingness to lose the Reculver tale should that be the consensus here, as things stand the consensus (discounting myself, obviously) seems to be otherwise. As I say, I'm perfectly willing to relegate this detail to a footnote, where in fact I'm utterly convinced it would be valid...? Ultimately, of course, should this article be promoted, it'll include the tale or it won't. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"when the local hundred was named after Bleangate in a detached part of Chislet parish" This does not seem clear to me. Was the hundred re-named or had Reculver become part of a larger hundred?
Geography. The first paragraph repeats what has been said above - I would cut it down either here or previously.
At GA time I gained an impression that this sort of repetition is unavoidable, but I agree and have deleted almost the whole of the first paragraph. Nortonius (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
" It rests unconformably on the Chalk Group" Unconformably could be linked to unconformity.
"There is no formal access to Reculver by sea," I am not sure what this means - is there informal access and if so what?
Informal access would be running a dinghy ashore or running aground in anything bigger! I've changed this to make it clearer, any good? Nortonius (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's very kind of you Dudley Miles! I'll be busy for a bit this afternoon but I'll get to your further comments asap. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 11:54, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It honestly hadn't occurred to me that the country park might have an article of its own – I think that's a good point! Though, I've been stalling for ages on an improvement to Regulbium, which sorely needs updating. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll think on it further... Nortonius (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Notes -- Hi Nortonius, am I right in gathering that this is your first FAC? If so, a belated welcome! A couple of things:
You have several duplinks in the article. In an article of this size, some may be justified by the space between them but pls review and lose what's not necessary. This script will highlight the duplicates.
Hello, and thank you, yes it's my first time here. Duplinks were raised previously, and my response was that I'd tried to be judicious with them and reflect the length of the article. Thanks for the tip but I used that script then. I've had another look though, and a few more have gone: the remaining ones are for pretty obscure people and places, I think, and are quite far apart in the article, so I'd like to keep them if possible. Nortonius (talk) 13:03, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We need a source review for formatting and reliability and, if this is your first FAC, a source spotcheck for accuracy and avoidance of close paraphrasing. If any of the reviewers above would like to undertake one or both of those, pls respond here in the next day or so, otherwise I'll list requests at WT:FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Reference checking of this one is a big task, though they look to be in very good shape. I'm just going to make start.
A couple of footnotes refer to Sawyer in the following way: "Sawyer 1968, S 1264; "S 1264". The Electronic Sawyer. King's College London. 2014. Archived from the original on 21 April 2014. Retrieved 22 May 2014" Can I just confirm that the Sawyer 1968 and the linked 'electronic Sawyer' are different works? If these are actually two different ways of citing the same work, then i would suggest including just the Harvard style reference in the footnote, then link the Electronic Sawyer edition in the bibliographic reference. Though I suppose that means you lose the electronic reference to the specific page... hmm, not sure.
They are two different sources, one printed and one online: I suppose I'm trying to give the reader a choice of sources, but I'd lose the book over the website at a push...? The punctuation in the example you give is partly an artefact of the harvnb and cite web templates, which I think I've handled consistently. Nortonius (talk) 14:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Footnote 77 - is a cite to Access to Archives. Apart from being unsure about this citation (is A2A really the author?), this looks like it may be original research, in part since the source document itself is a primary historical source of unclear provenance (ie.. in itself I'm not sure it would meet WP:RS). My view is that this snippet, interesting though it is, probably can't stay unless you have a published source that cites it.
I'm not quite sure I follow you here, perhaps I need to clarify the citation, forgive me if this is a bit lengthy or is telling you stuff you already know: it's to a description of a primary source on the website of The National Archives (UK), the provenance being the archive of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral. The text on the website is a précis, as are other items listed on the same web page; this is standard practice for The National Archives, and, while that text is headed "Contents" and includes the statement "[s]ignificant [historical] alterations to original text", you might compare reference 128, also citing an item on The National Archive's website, where only the briefest details are given of the actual document concerned.[9] Beyond that, there is zero chance that the text being cited is verbatim: if the 15th-century original is in English, this is a cleaned-up version for modern readers. (If you're not familiar with 15th-century English there's a brief example here.) On the other hand the original may well be in Latin, though this is not stated and an endorsement in that language is specified: the web page lists "charters", which in the 15th century would generally have been in Latin. So obviously I'm seeing The National Archive's website as the published source. If I've understood the source of your doubt correctly, is that really any different to citing a published edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example? If that's wrong too then I've got a lot of work to do, and not just here! But this citation is only for an explanatory footnote, so the whole thing can be lost if you're certain. "A2A" is a hangover from when I wasn't sure how to handle the cite web template: I've fixed it now, I'll have a look to see if there are any more like that, thanks for spotting it. Nortonius (talk) 14:47, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've now had a go at fixing ad hoc authors in cite web templates such as "Access to Archives", hopefully those that remain are acceptable. Nortonius (talk) 12:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, there's an issue for discussion here, that may require other editors to get involved, and I'll leave a note at the talk page for the FAC project. Current footnotes 77, 128, 129, 130, 136, 173, all make reference to notes in the National Archives database that summarise and/or translate historical documents. These are then used in this WP article as evidence for facts stated in the article. For example, footnote 77 is to the Archives' translation / transcription (we can't tell which) of a fifteenth century document. The WP article then quotes that document to illustrate a point made in the text about the history of the site. (In this case, the point made in the text does have a contemporary secondary source also cited, so loss of the 15th century source would not require removal of the text in the article). In the case of footnotes 128-130, an Archives summary is used to support this: "By 1540 Bleangate hundred no longer included land on Thanet, its members being listed then as Sturry, Chislet, Reculver and Herne...". My question is: do we regard the transcriptions and descriptive text of the National Archives site as being both a reliable source and a secondary source or, since they are simply transcriptions and descriptions of documents held in the archives, are they either unreliable sources and/or primary sources? My view is that they are primary sources and, if the historical documents they represent are things such as letters, also not reliable sources. In the case where the Archives site is a transcription or description of certain types of source document, such as a Manor Roll, then these would meet the criterion of being a reliable source (as they were authoritative legal reference works of their period) but would still fail for WP because of being primary sources. Other views? hamiltonstone (talk) 10:51, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I'd just like to clarify exactly what is being cited in the references kindly listed by hamiltonstone (for some items you may wish to cross-refer to the article's Bibliography):
77: the origin of hamiltonstone's query. I've described this in some detail above, and I would only emphasise that, whether or not it involves translation (from Latin), it is clearly a précis with description rather than being a verbatim copy: in this respect I would suggest it is analogous to what we find in references to Sawyer, 1968, and to The Electronic Sawyer, which you may also wish to consider! Does this not also apply to the question of provenance, since many items listed in Sawyer, 1968, are notes, précis or even outright forgeries...?
128: 2 items cited here, the first is a database entry describing a certified communal assessment for the tax of four 15ths and 10ths granted to Henry VIII in 1540 – a document of central government – which is germane to hamiltonstone's query; the second is a National Archives guide to researching this type of tax, and is a secondary source.
129: 2 items, the first is another database entry as in reference 128, again for a document of central government; the second is information from the same document published in Lambarde, 1596, a secondary source.
130: 3 items, the first two are secondary sources, i.e. Jones, 2007, a transcription and translation of the Kent Hundred Rolls 1274–75, published by the Hundred Rolls Project (or would that still be a primary source? You might compare references to Fenwick, 1998), and Hasted, 1800; the third is another database entry as in reference 128, again for a document of central government.
136: 2 items, both secondary sources(?), i.e. Jones, 2007, again and a National Archives description of the Hearth Tax.
137: 1 item, another database entry as in 128.
138: 1 item, another database entry as in 128.
173: 3 items, the first and third are secondary sources, being Bagshaw, 1847, and Clarke, 2010; the second is another database entry as in reference 128, again for a document of central government. Nortonius (talk) 11:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thoughts from me... I've concerns about using some of the primary sources in this way, as the article text implies that they are authoritative and accurate, which is, in itself, an historical judgement. Were this an historical dissertation at a university, I'd be encouraging their use but the rules on primary sources on the Wiki are reasonably tight, and with good reason. I'm content, btw, that we can trust the National Archive for the translation though. I am on the more cautious wing of the wiki when it comes to primary sources and OR though, so I won't be offended if you disagree with me! :)
In detail:
77: This seems to be only supporting the quote in Footnote 15, rather than any broader statement. As such, it doesn't feel like OR, although I'd be nervous about using it as evidence that the river actually had silted up as described, which would require interpretation of the primary source (as a draft bill, it is arguing a specific case, and like any plaintive motion, may well be biased or exaggerated). I'd suggest that we should call it a "draft bill" though, rather than a "note", as per the National Archive description.
Thank you, I've changed the text as you suggest for now Actually I think "note" is better, since all it does is describe the provisions of a bill which has already become an Act of Parliament...? Nortonius (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The title of the document is given by the National Archive as "Bill (draft)", and its desscribed "Endorsed 'Billa de Thaneto' ", so I'm pretty sure it's a draft bill rather than just a note. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:03, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, that's what I was missing, thank you! I see what you mean; but the only reference to a bill is in the (medieval) archivist's endorsement "Billa de Thaneto" ("endorsement" here means simply "something written on the back"), whereas in the text itself only an Act of Parliament is mentioned, in line 4. And R.E. Latham's (1965) Revised Medieval Latin Word-List translates billa as "bill" or "schedule", so it's ambiguous, too (remember e.g. "bill of sale", "playbill", i.e. "statement" or "notice"). It would be shame to lose this through sloppy archiving! In the meantime I've changed the wording to clarify the nature of the document. Nortonius (talk) 16:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
128: I'm cautious about the interpretation of the tax listing. It is described as an "assessment of the lathes of Scray and St. Augustine for the first of the four fifteenths and tenths granted in 1540. Undated and with no return date endorsed, but presumably drawn up before payment was due in February 1541", and I think that assuming that this is a final version of the assessment (and that subsequent versions weren't produced, which might have included Thanet, for example) is an historical judgement than might push this into OR territory.
Assessments submitted to the Exchequer were final – the commissioners collected tax according to the assessment. I can assure you (ahem, first-hand, personal, OR-style knowledge alert!) that the description you quote is merely to assist research, rather than qualifying the document's validity. On this point, I believe I have a copy somewhere of M Jurkowski, C Smith and D Crook, Lay Taxes in England and Wales, 1188-1688 (Public Record Office, 1998), which was written in connection with the creation of the E 179 Database, there might be something helpful in that to cover it; or you might look through all the similar records on the E 179 Database to see what I'm getting at. ;o) See also my comment here for 137. Nortonius (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose that underlines my concern - we're having to apply our own professional/private knowledge as historians to assess the reliability of the document, rather than relying on expert secondary sources' judgement about the tax assessments. That's not suggesting your judgement is necessarily wrong... rather that I don't believe we shouldn't be using primary sources in this way on the wiki. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
129: Again, I'd apply some caution, since we don't know if this was a final version or not. It's used to support the claim that "All the members of Bleangate hundred were assessed..." which again implies a judgement and interpretation of whether this was a final or interim assessment.
See my comments here for 128 and 137; in this reference Lambarde gives the same information, so the citation of the E 179 database is simply to give the reader an alternative source, and can be lost if that's the consensus. Nortonius (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
130: Similarly, we're treating the primary source as authoritative, which feels like an interpretative judgement.
See my comments here for 128 and 137; obviously, if it is accepted that the source is authoritative, then the statement it supports is no more OR than reading a map. Nortonius (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
136. Seems to be a secondary source, no problem that I can see.
The first page of text is a secondary source, if I'm remembering right, then you've got some primary statistics making up the second half? Hchc2009 (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're remembering the right thing! But there's an introduction just over a page long, followed by an alphabetical index, and then a transcription and translation of the Kent Hundred Rolls for 1274–75, which is the bulk of it. That's why I asked – it wasn't a trick question, I was just wondering what you thought about me using it. See also my response below. Nortonius (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
137. Again, I'd be cautious. The covering description notes that it "is unusual for a hearth tax assessment, since it is not only clearly dated (rather than simply annotated with the collection for which it was drawn up), but was prepared well in advance of the payment date", and - particularly given its unusual status - I think it requires interpretation to conclude that this was an authoritative final document, implied in the way it is used in the text. Hchc2009 (talk) 14:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See my comment for 128; this document is in fact a very good example of what I mean by assessments being final and used in collection of tax, i.e. it is "annotated with the collection for which it was drawn up", which the word "simply" indicates was not unusual. Commissioners would submit their assessments to the Exchequer as indentures, and use their own copies for tax collections. All comments gratefully received; I may be questioning and testing, but I just want everything weighed in the scales! Thanks very much. Nortonius (talk) 15:49, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Silly me – of course, the nature of all but the first of these documents is explained here (for all 15ths & 10ths) and here (for the Hearth Tax). I hope that clarifies the documents' reliability, though obviously it doesn't touch on the question of whether their representation on the National Archives website should be seen as a primary or secondary source. Nortonius (talk) 15:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Statement by Nortonius regarding the reliability of the sources discussed above, and whether they are primary or secondary:
While I'm very grateful for the attention – this kind of discussion is meat to my drink, and obviously I would like this article to become a FA – I'm finding the FAC process far slower than I'd hoped, though I had seen that FACs can take a couple of months or so. Also, I think things are looking really good apart from the issues raised in the source review. I'd like to make a couple of points about that, with which of course you may agree or disagree, and then make a suggestion. Really, I'm writing this in the hope that it might move things along a bit.
Firstly, I do believe the question of the reliability of these documents is a bit of a red herring, although obviously it was raised and has been discussed in good faith. While I've already explained my view of the 15th-century document in reference 77, concerned with the bridge at Sarre, at some length above, I've also offered links giving background information on the nature of all the other documents – again, they are here and here. Then, I've stated my view that the sources I've used are secondary: i.e. that they all involve a description of a document, on the website of The National Archives. Regarding the first document, again I've already gone into that in some detail, but I'd like to expand a little on the documents in the E 179 Database. The background, function and aim of the database are explained on its "About" page:
The E 179 database has been developed since 1995 by the University of Cambridge (Department of Geography and Faculty of History) and the National Archives, with more recent input from the University of Wales: Bangor (Department of History and Welsh History) and the University of York. ... Each piece or item within the E 179 series has a database record which not only gives a description of the physical appearance of the document, but also explains the administrative purpose for which the document was created, the date on which it was produced, the tax or taxes to which it relates and a list of the place-name headings contained within it. ... The database provides a major step forward in searching and using this important and diverse series of records, for historians and genealogists alike.
So the database's credentials are surely impeccable, and it "explains" documents, as well as describing and listing them. To me, that's a secondary source. Of course, you can agree or disagree.
If the consensus is that these are in fact primary sources, then we come to my suggestion. I've looked at the references highlighted here, and found that in fact it would be very easy for me to make only slight changes in the article itself and substitute published books for all but one of the sources in doubt. That's it. You might then ask, if it's so easy to fix, why am I holding out? The answer is that I think this is an important point of principle both for me personally and for WP: while I think these sources are secondary, they – and particularly the E 179 Database – were made available precisely for the use of the public, by the Public Record Office, something that I think is sadly obscured by its sexy re-naming as "The National Archives". So this availability is for you, me, and why not WP? This is potentially a huge resource for articles dealing with English and Welsh places and their history, and I think it would be a great shame for WP to lose it.
Lastly, I trust that my suggested alternative approach demonstrates that I'm arguing in good faith, and am neither clutching at straws nor indulging in special pleading. Thanks for reading. Nortonius (talk) 12:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, I'm very indeed happy to accept that you're arguing in good faith - and IMHO you've a perfectly valid argument! :) I'd agree that the distinction between an original primary text and a precis of a primary text is a subtle one, and my historical theory isn't good enough for me to be truly lucid on this... I guess I would still see a precis of a primary text as being different from the sort of secondary source I'd want to see used in a wiki article. Rather like the distinction between a primary source, a translation of that source, and a scholarly analysis of it, I suppose - the latter isn't exactly a secondary source, even if a historian was involved in the translation.
What the National Archives is not saying, though, as far as I can tell, is that these documents have been assessed by a professional historian as necessarily accurate or truthful, or that they support a particular historical claim; they are simply being put forward as historical source material - with a helpful contextual description/precis - for historians (of all backgrounds!) to use in their work.
If we are simply stating that a particular document exists, and that it says something (as in the way you've used the draft bill/note), I think we'd be on the right side of the WP:PRIMARY line, provided there isn't reason to suspect that we're inadvertently misleading the reader in our choice of quote or document, and there was some secondary sources on the topic. But where we make the analytical leap from that to saying that something was true/ accurate/ actually happened (as we do when we state that a particular tax assessment occurred, or that a particular location was ultimately included/not included), I personally think we're going over that WP:PRIMARY line. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks for the response! :o) Actually, would it help if I pointed out (as perhaps I should have done before) that the E 179 Database is itself the published result of a research project undertaken by historians...? So it is precisely the case that "that these documents have been assessed by a professional historian as necessarily accurate or truthful, [and] that they support a particular historical claim". You can check this out via the reports linked on the Economic and Social Research Council's website here. Just a thought, I know you might still not be convinced! As regards using these sources for historical analysis, I'm quite sure I've not done this, instead just stating what's there, comparable I'd have thought to reading a map? I've just checked this in the article to be certain. It might be why it genuinely didn't occur to me that these sources would be problematical...! ;o) Nortonius (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a quick look through a couple of the .pdfs on the web link, and I'm not seeing where the accuracy or truthfulness of the content of the documents is being assessed by the project, or their support for particular historical claims is covered - it seems to be about how they are recording the physical description of each of the documents (e.g. are they a parchment roll etc.), the likely dates of their creation etc. - but I may not be looking in the right place. Is there a specific page which covers it? Hchc2009 (talk) 15:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An example of what I have in mind is this: "The project [that produced the E 179 Database] has achieved its aim in carrying out a comprehensive and detailed examination and re-appraisal of the records for the six counties in respect of which [this particular research] grant was awarded. New descriptions of the documents, based on a rigorous evaluation of the records themselves and their context have been produced" (from the downloadable .pdf on this page, listed in the link I gave earlier – sorry, I didn't mean to make it hard!). I don't think we'll find it stated any more clearly than that, to be honest, maybe because the documents are what they are – certified, signed and (wax) sealed records of medieval and early modern central government taxation, for which "[n]ew descriptions ... based on a rigorous evaluation of the records themselves and their context have been produced." I'm not sure anyone at the Public Record Office/The National Archives would've thought their validity would be questioned in this way, if they had they might've made a more explicit statement. They didn't, darn it, so maybe I'll have to leave it there. But can we really get any more reliable than that? Nortonius (talk) 16:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's not quite the same as saying that the content of the records is accurate or true though. To take the example of the "(draft) bill" talking about the river silting up, it is one thing for the National Archives to say that it appears to be within a particular date range, is a particular type of paper etc., and contains particular text - they're saying it is an authentic item, not a modern forgery. That's not the same, however, as saying that the content is correct (e.g. did the river really silt up then, or had it happened earlier? did the writer know what they were talking about?) or is even truthful (e.g. was the writer exaggerating to make their case?) Similarly, confirmation that a note was a genuine part of a tax archive, and that it was produced within a particular date range, doesn't equate to it being the final version of an assessment. Those are historical judgements, rather than the facts being put forward by the Archives. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Do I detect some confusion here, or is it just me...? The note about silting is nothing to do with the tax records, there just happens to be a description of it online at The National Archives – as far as that goes, the note and the tax records are separate issues. About the note, I've said that it'd be a shame to lose it through sloppy archiving, and ultimately I don't have a problem with it; but obviously that's an issue. Quite why the note is at The National Archives, when it's from the Canterbury Cathedral archive, which has its own online presence, I've really no idea! Whereas the tax records aren't notes, they're official records, like the modern census, for example; and I've tried to indicate why the database is a secondary source, as per the quotation from the .pdf. :o) Nortonius (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any secondary sources which explicitly say that these particular documents are accurate, final records of the tax assessments? The individual records on the Archives don't say so, and it doesn't seem to be a statement that's in the covering research document. The two of us may happen to think so, but that's because we're applying our interpretative skills etc., which I personally think goes beyond the WP:PRIMARY guidelines. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:07, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer to your question is – I'll clamber into my hot, dusty loft to have a look – I was hoping to avoid that, more than you might guess...! It's not that I don't see what you're saying; but the government and Exchequer at the time accepted that they were accurate, final records of the tax assessments because that's how they collected the taxes. I'll see what I can find – after a fortifying cup of tea! Nortonius (talk) 17:57, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's some reading for you, from Jurkowski, M., Smith, C. & Crook, D. (1998), Lay Taxes in England and Wales 1188–1688, Public Record Office, ISBN1-873162-64-2. I'm not sure that there's anything here that I haven't already said, apart from a specific reference to the Cinque Ports, which will have applied to Reculver until about the end of the 15th century. Some of what I'm including here is for context, but on the whole I take it as definitive for all the sources in question apart from the note about silting, and it's from a published source. Whether you find it of any use remains to be seen! :o)
About the E 179 Database: The aim of [the 'E 179 Database' is] to provide the first reliable and detailed guide to the surviving records of central government taxation in England and Wales [between the late 12th and the late 17th centuries]. ... The information to be found in these taxation records ranges from extraordinarily detailed lists of taxpayers ... to the briefest records of minor receipts at the Exchequer. (p. v)
About 15ths and 10ths: [There are] large county assessments [surviving for taxes levied between 1294 and 1297] ... They list the names of the taxpayers in each town, village or hamlet and the sums that they paid ... From 1294 an innovation appeared, whereby those living in urban areas and ancient demesne paid at a higher rate than those in rural communities ... Experimentation with the levels [of taxation] continued, but the differentiation was to remain a standard feature of fractional taxes until the levy of the last such [tax. After] 1332 the rates [for fractional taxes] settled permanently at a level of a fifteenth on rural areas and a tenth on towns and ancient demesne ... New arrangements for a 15th and 10th granted in 1334 meant that "[a]ll that was necessary ... was to copy from the 1332 rolls lists of the townships in each county and the sums that they had paid, issue these to the chief-taxers, and wait until the money was delivered to the Exchequer. Each subsequent roll of particule compoti [i.e. "particulars of account", the documents that I have previously described as "communal assessments" and am citing from the E 179 Database in connection with 15ths and 10ths] was thereafter copied from one of the preceding ones, and if one were mislaid another would serve equally well ... In [1433 a rebate] was deducted on a pro-rata basis from the amounts due to the counties for a fifteenth and tenth, and redistributed to townships afflicted by natural disaster or economic decline. ... By about 1486 the rebates given to each township had become fixed, and this standardization came to be reflected in the particulars of account; these included the standard deductions as a matter of course and were again simply copied from roll to roll until the last levy of fifteenths and tenths in 1625 ... [M]ost [particulars of account for 15ths and 10ths] are merely word-for-word copies of their predecessors ... There are, however, some exceptions. The large numbers of individuals in Kent and Sussex who claimed exemption as 'barons' of the Cinque Ports are listed in the assessment rolls for those counties ... (pp. xxix, xxxi, xxxiv)
About the Hearth Tax: Historians may now view the hearth tax as far more trouble than it was worth, but its levy has left copious records (assessments, collection books, accounts, exemption certificates and schedules of arrears) in [the Public Record Office/The National Archives series] E 179. (p. lxiii)
[The hearth tax applied to] each 'dwelling, or other house or edifice', in England and Wales ... Empty houses were to be assessed by ... constables, who were also required to enter all inhabited houses in order to verify the returns made by the occupants. [For the first collection t]he constables were to send in their returns to the next quarter sessions [of the local justices of the peace] following 31 May 1662. The justices of the peace were then to instruct the clerk of the peace to compile these returns and make two enrolled copies of the assessment of the whole county. One of these enrolments was for the use of the sheriff, who was charged with receiving the tax, and the other was to be signed by three justices and returned to the Exchequer for use in auditing the sheriff's account. (p. 262)
— Jurkowski, Smith & Crook, Lay Taxes in England and Wales 1188–1688
Those are my bolded headings, by the way. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC) p.s. I just noticed you're fielding your own GAN at the moment, thanks ever so for the time you've put into this too![reply]
I'm not sure of where to put this on the FA review, so I'll put it here. Upthread, there is some discussion on whether Access to Archive is a suitable source. The National Archives is where all public documentation gets dumped in the hope that someone can make head or tail of it. For researching war plans hatched from the Home Office, it is a brilliant source as you're finding out exactly who said what where and when. It's unquestionably a reliable source as, notwithstanding some high profile news cases, the information has a high expectation of being genuine transcriptions. Not all of it's a primary source, as you can get some discussions where civil servants are summarising policy documents drawn from elsewhere, but generally the facts you can cull from it can usually be trusted to be correct. Having said all of that, quite often you can get a good history book from someone who's gone through TNA and pulled out all the bits that are actually important or interesting (particularly if the original document pre-date the 19th century) - though you generally won't know that until you find the book in question and find a citation squirrelled away in the references section at the back. An afternoon at the archives is great for researchers and writers, as you don't physically have to move much, you just need to have a good idea of what files you're looking for and how much time you think it'll take to find them. However, to summarise I'm with Hchc2009 that if a fact in a TNA file is of real encyclopaedic importance, somebody will have already published it, so in general terms you should give it a miss. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)18:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, very pleased to get a response, and you put it in just the right place! :o) I must admit, I wish there were more printed sources for this kind of information for this article, but Reculver being as obscure as it is there generally aren't. Maybe see what you think of my response to Hchc2009 immediately above...? Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 14:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, I have to tip my hat to you for attempting to get this through FAC, as I think accurately documenting anything through the middle ages that isn't upper class or royal is a hard task. I'll tell you what I do have that may help validate your claims - a copy of Mike Parker's Mapping The Roads, ([11]) which includes a copy of the Gough Map of Britain, produced around 1360 and currently residing in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It clearly shows the Isle of Thanet as an island, and a bridge north of Canterbury at what could only realistically be Sarre. Parker's book suggest that while some parts (especially Scotland) are hopelessly wrong, the major exception is London and the south east, which he claims is startlingly accurate for the 14th century. Don't know if that helps, but it fits in with your timeframe. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)18:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ritchie333, that's super kind of you. I'd not thought of the Gough map. The bridge you're seeing (or rather, the only bridge I'm seeing, in Kent) is actually at Rochester – search the map for that place here – but the map is a great source for the fact that Thanet was still very much an island in about 1360! I'll work that into the article somehow, I'm sure. Cheers and thanks again. Nortonius (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nor did I, until you mentioned it! :o) It's not the easiest map to decipher, but it's great to have it and I've just introduced it into a footnote, Cheers! Nortonius (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as you can imagine, it was a little hard to follow everything that ensued above, once i asked a question about whether certain Archive sources were reliable and/or primary sources. The discussion I think has certainly demonstrated the nominator's credentials as a person experienced in working with these materials, which is helpful. I am pursuaded by the nom's evidence above, in respect of many of the notes i questioned, that the Archives descriptions are one step removed from the materials themselves, as well as establishing the reliability of those sources, and as such address my concerns. I remain unconvinced about the text involved at note 77. Whether one calls it a precis or a summary or a translation, it is very clear that it is representing the original text, not a historian's analysis of it. Maybe I was misunderstood: i am not questioning whether the text at A2A reliably represents the content of the original document - rather, i am questioning the use of the underlying original source as reliable. If it was not a reliable source in the first place, then its accurate sumamrisation by a reliable source/organisation doesn't help it to become reliable. However, since the relevant fact is also supported by a valid secondary source, it doesn't matter in terms of FAC.hamiltonstone (talk) 00:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me to wonder, everybody, if the appearance of the word "assessment" has played any part in this discussion – as I hope the quotations above from Jurkowski et al. make clear, the type of assessment in question isn't an "estimation that things are a bit like this", it's a technical term for part of the tax-collecting process, as per (in the UK) "self-assessment". Maybe it was that obvious all along, and with the benefit of hindsight I can see that the discussion has almost certainly been necessary. But I thought I'd mention it. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 12:04, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up -- There's been a good deal of discussion since my note about a source review and spotcheck and I appreciate everyone's efforts, though ideally this level of discussion should occur before, not during the FAC process. Since there now seems to have been a pause for breath, can I just ask Hamiltonstone, Ritchie333 and Hchc2009 to confirm or deny that there are remaining concerns about the source usage/reliability or any spotchecks completed? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ian. The source checking for this was very labour intensive - i didn't get past checking the footnote formatting and RS checking. I've been through a random sample of the bibliography and all the ones I checked matched to the footnotes and appeared appropriately laid out. I am now satisfied regarding source usage etc. In my view the one remaining requirement is a spot check of some sources other than the archive ones that have already been discussed. I can't do that right now. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
With apologies for the slight delay... I'm still not convinced that the article is using the primary archive material in accordance with WP:PRIMARY, and - in my opinion - is stepping over the line in terms of interpreting and evaluating the sources. There are secondary sources cited in this discussion that discuss this class of primary source material in general terms, but they do not discuss not the specific primary sources actually being used.
As an example, Footnote 29, makes a firm statement about how much the Bleangate hundred was assessed for tax at, apparently based on an undated Latin parchment roll, E179/126/415, in the National Archives. None of the secondary sources above appear to have assessed the accuracy of the contents of this specific parchment, not is any assessment given on the National Archive's page. Indeed, the National Archive's guide to researching the E179 documentary series makes no statements that all the documents were final or that their contents were accurate (although I'd certainly expect that many or most would be).
The evaluation that the content of this particular parchment is an accurate reflection of the final tax assessment for Bleangate - as opposed to it being an interim piece of administrative working-out, for example - is a personal/professional judgement, definitely drawing on specialised knowledge, and is an example of something which I still think steps over the boundary in terms of the WP:PRIMARY guidance.
My personal recommendation, particularly at the FA level, would be to remove many of these the primary sources and to rely purely on reliable, high-quality secondary sources. Alternatively, the statements could be written so as to stay within the WP:PRIMARY guidelines. I'd be relatively happy to see a statement along the lines of "A parchment roll, believed by the National Archives to have probably been written between 1571 and 1572, describes all the members of the Bleangate hundred as being assessed for tax at 1d." That would avoid us making an evaluative claims about the document, and simply describing the contents of the primary source, in line with the guideline that we should only be making "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". Hchc2009 (talk) 16:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit I'm rather baffled by this. The particular example you've chosen is just one of dozens and dozens of communal assessments for a 15th and 10th, which, as Jurkowski et al. note, were simply copied on from roll to roll, except between 1433 and about 1486. The document in question here is from 1571. How can it not be a final assessment? It's not an "interim piece of administrative working-out", or else the E 179 Database would say so – it might call it an "auditor's reckoning", for example – instead, it calls it a "communal assessment". I selected this document in particular because it happens to be available in print, via the reference to Lambarde (1596). Choose any other and it would be the same. I honestly don't see the cause for doubt. There are exceptions in Kent where "barons" of the Cinque Ports are listed, but I haven't touched on them in the article at all. Regarding the Hearth Tax rolls, Jurkowski et al. are quite explicit in the quotations I gave above about the nature of all the assessments, in describing how they were arrived at and how they were submitted to the Exchequer bearing the signatures of three justices of the peace. Where's the analysis? To me, these are precisely ""straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". I think that's a wonderful description of what they are. On the other hand I'm grateful for your suggestion for how wording in the article might be subtly altered; but I can barely see the difference, it seems vanishingly small. I think I'll leave this for a bit, if only to give it some thought; but I really do feel baffled by this. Cheers for now. Nortonius (talk) 18:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note to say I've asked Ritchie333 for a view of how things stand, as Ian Rose did previously, but it may take a while or not materialise at all because of other commitments. I hope we can all wait a bit longer. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 20:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a quick look at this specific area re the Wantsum Channel that I suggested using the Gough Map for. I'm happy with the choice of sources used now. However, the article's text says "But silting and inning had closed the channel to trading vessels by about 1460", while the source (Perkins 2007 p. 254) says "although implying some sort of traffic was possible until about the year 1460". That's subtly different, the source isn't saying that the channel was definitely closed by that timetrame, merely suggesting it probably was. That wants rewording. The 1485 date for the bridge looks okay, as its cited to an Act of Parliament. The text in the footnote looks properly cited now. Basically, we don't have exact dates for when the Wantsum dried up and changed from the wide estuary to the creek we know today - it was probably a gradual process. I haven't looked through the rest of the article but (touch wood) I'll get some time this week to do some more spot checks. Hope that's of help. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wonderful, very much appreciated, and well spotted! I'll get onto it asap but having an unexpectedly busy day myself today! Cheers Nortonius (talk) 16:53, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, re-reading the relevant sentence in Perkins, "After [1374–75] most references to the Wantsum relate to its deterioration, although implying some sort of traffic was possible until about the year 1460", I understand it as saying in other words that "although the channel deteriorated after 1375, traffic might have continued until about 1460, but no later", so no change needed...? Or am I missing something? Thanks again! Nortonius (talk) 13:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I wouldn't argue with that – although in that part of the sentence I'm referring to vessels sailing along the channel, and this is the main interest of the source – how about I clarify that by changing the wording to I've changed the wording to "But silting and inning had closed the channel to trading vessels sailing along it by about 1460 or soon after, ..." in hope of clarifying that, any better? By saying that maritime traffic is implied as "possible" until about 1460, I understand Jenkins as saying it was "impossible" after about 1460... Thanks again. Nortonius (talk) 15:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing note - This has been a tricky one. I have decided that the best course of action is to archive this nomination in the hope that a renomination well give rise to a clearer consensus. I thank the nominator and the reviewers for there contributions to these discussions and urge the former to use the required two week gap before renominating to resolve the contentious issues. (Also, the prose would benefit from a little polishing; particularly the use of "being" instead of a simple past tense.) Graham Colm (talk) 16:08, 13 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the 2012 animated series Napoleon Dynamite. I have improved this article substantially and it is now a Good Article. I previously nominated it for featured article, but it was not promoted and I received very little input. I made every suggested improvement from the previous nomination and I think this article is ready for featured article status. Me5000 (talk) 23:15, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Noahcs The show had an extremely short run and was cancelled. I've scoured the web for sources(some of which took a lot of digging) and this is all I could find. Me5000 (talk) 14:40, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Being short isn't an issue if it's comprehensive—there are number of FAs shorter than this article. At first glance I can see it definitely needs a copyedit—three sentences in a row begin with "the series" in the opening paragraph. I'm pretty sure the table of the cast could be made more accessible. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:39, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Curly Turkey I read through the article and did some copy editing, let me know if it was sufficient. As for the table of the cast, I've been racking my brains over this. I think you suggest that the cast, characters, descriptions, and pictures should all be one table? The picture table was already there before I started working on the article and after fooling around with it, looking at other pages, and looking at help topics, I could not figure how to do a table. I tried integrating the pictures into the bullet list, but that didn't look good. I'm not sure how I can address this problem beyond deleting the pictures all together. Me5000 (talk) 05:33, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The episode summaries ought to be expanded a little more; per WP:TVPLOT, short summaries have an upper limit of 200 words for simplistic plots. – 23W (talk · contribs)05:46, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, you don't need citations for plot summaries, as long as they're not excessively detailed, and they don't stray into interpretation (they have to be strictly descriptive). See MOS:PLOT. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 06:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this is unfortunate. The episodes aired in early 2012 and I only saw them once when they aired. My memory of the episodes is almost nil at this point. Me5000 (talk) 16:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't normally edit TV shows, so I don't know how important this is. My gut feeling is that, since this article is about the series as a whole rather than the individual episodes or seasons, it shouldn't be a make-or-break thing. Maybe you could ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Television? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:07, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:Curly Turkey I asked the question[15] and the original commenter replied saying "It's not a pressing issue" but also still thought it was a good idea. Two other people replied one stated "I'd say the ones you have for the table are fine" and that larger summaries are reserved for articles on the episodes themselves. The other said the instructions say 100-200 words and also stated "Episode summaries are optional. They don't have to be in the table at all." Me5000 (talk) 06:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've given the article a quick copyedit. Feel free to revert anything you disagree with.
"We’d always felt that, if we continued the world, animation would be the way to do it because everybody gets old and it was a movie that took place in high school.": I'd paraphrase this rather than quote it—it's got a rambling quality to it that doesn't flow well with the rest of the text, and takes extra effort in a written context to decipher: what's "the world"? "everybody gets old and it was a movie that took place in high school."—it took a a minute to realize that this referred to the problem of the actors outgrowing their parts.
Jared Hess met with writer-producer Mike Scully to propose an animated version of the film: meaning they met so Hess could propose the series to Scully, or they met for the purpose of developing a proposal?
schedule without Napoleon Dynamite listed, officially canceling the series: something doesn't ring right about having the series left off the menu equating to "officially canceling"
said that she wasn't a fan of the movie or the animated series: somehow this doesn't seem like much of a criticism. I'm not a fan of Chopin, bu that's not the same as calling him "lame".
Can we get a date for the show's premiere on Global? Or at least a better source—the one used is only an announcement, and isn't evidence that the show actually did run.
He boasts about knowing all the secret ninja moves from the government and his girlfriend in Oklahoma.: does he actually have a girlfriend in Oklahoma to boast about?
User:Curly Turkey I was under the impression that sources used for opinion were fine as long it was clear it was someone's opinion and clear whose opinion it was. I also found the review under "critic reviews" on Metacritic[16] and I used featured article The Wire as one of my model articles to help write Napoleon Dynamite; The Wire has a line in the critical reception about Metacritic's score, so I thought anything from Metacritic would be acceptable in the crtiical reception section. Me5000 (talk) 16:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we still need a summary of the film. Otherwise, statements like "Kip hasn't met Lafawnduh yet, but Pedro has been elected class president" are simply gibberish. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose → Comments. I don't see this as close to FA level. There is not enough information for someone new to the series, and what there is could be presented in a much better way. Some examples:
"The series takes place following the events of the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite." Which were what?
I found some new information according to Jared and Jerusha it takes place near the end of the film and according to Mike Scully there is no continuity, they only transferred the premise and characters. I changed it to address this, have another look at it and tell what you think should be done. Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Rex, Summer, and Don appear to mentioned nowhere except in the list of characters (which is under Cast...); I see a llama (?) in the infobox and it's mentioned in some sources, but not in this article.
I don't understand. Do you want me to remove Rex, Summer and Don from the cast list? I don't see llama mentioned in the infobox or anywhere in this article, I'm not sure what you are referring to. Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. To be honest I don't remember anything about the llamma in any of the sources and I don't know what could be said about it. In the movie the llama is just there for one joke where Napoleon feeds it and I don't recall the llama being in the show. Me5000 (talk) 02:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
After looking into it the recurring characters were only in one episode, so I moved them in the episode descriptions as guest stars. Me5000 (talk) 02:29, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why are the photos of the actors of two sizes?
A weird glitch in the gallery code makes rows of images that come close to the screen edge resize themselves to fill to the edge of the screen. If your screen is small enough that the images break into two rows, then one route will be resized while the other, shorter one won't. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No information in the text on how the episodes were made.
This is something I thought about adding, but I decided against it for 2 reasons; 1. There isnt that much info about it, I could probably only write a paragraph; 2. Looking at the information about the process, it was the same process as any other animated show, so I thought adding it would be repetitive. Let me know what you think, I'll still add it if you think it needs it. Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at the sources and the only information about that I could find was there were 12 writers(unnamed), the animation was done by Rough Draft Studios, the Hesses and Scully wrote and produced. Is this enough information to be added? It would be probably two sentences and I'm not sure where I would add it. Me5000 (talk) 02:29, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Too many quotes in Reception. A lot of these would be better paraphrased. "Lori Rackl of the Chicago Sun-Times said she did not like the movie and thought the animated series was even worse." This tells the reader only that one person didn't like it; the source gives some reasons/descriptive info, which are what's required. "Robert Bianco of USA Today disliked the first episode, but was fond of the second one saying he would have to wait and see which episode represents the show's direction." Again, 'he disliked it' tells the reader nothing useful; and what happened to his later opinion?
Removed some quotes(let me know if it is enough). Added more info for the Chicago and USA Today parts. I don't understand what you are asking about his later opinion or what "later opinion" refers to. Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"he would have to wait and see which episode represents the show's direction" – what did he report after waiting and seeing? "it was "far funnier" than Bob's Burgers and Allen Gregory" (what were they?). "because he could not see "Jon Heder's expressionless face" as he talked" (a good example of where the reader doesn't have enough background info – how would a reader know that an actor's lack of expression was a cause for amusement in the original (I assume that's the case)? A photo of him grinning doesn't help. Did the animated versions look like the actors? Did the animated version not have a blank expression?) "a "vulgarized premiere" that took away what made the film unique" (what was unique? Vulgarized in what sense?) I realize that some of these Qs probably can't be answered, but that raises the matter of whether the content that leads to them should remain. EddieHugh (talk) 15:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
He never reported on Napoleon dynamite again as I said below, there were no reviews for episodes 3-6(with the exception of the 3 sites I found and mentioned below and don't know if they are acceptable for use); Fixed Bob's Allen; Don't know what to say on this one, it's someone else's review and he doesn't go into detail about it. I don't know what one would say about it either..."Some audiences found humor in Jon Heder's stoner look from the movie"? I made that up so that would be original research, I don't understand what you want me to do.; Again no idea what to say, here is the guys entire review word for word:"Despite the participation of the movie's creators and the voices of the original cast, tonight's vulgarized premiere removes much of what made the film special and leaves just another second-rate Fox cartoon. But the second episode at 9:30 ET/PT is a sweeter, funnier improvement. We'll have to wait and see which represents the show's actual direction." He doesn't go into any detail as to why he thinks that, just that he thinks that. Me5000 (talk) 02:29, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From the lead: "an unusually short run of six episodes" (is "unusually short" justified from the main text?); "The first season of the series ranked sixth among teen viewers" (for what?); why summarize the critical response to the first episode only?
Removed unusually; I think I cleared up the teen viewers rank part; Except for the USA Today review all the reviews are structured as though the first 2 episodes(they aired on the same night) were one episode or they simply only reviewed the first episode and never mentioned the second. Unfortunately, there are no reviews for Episodes 3 through 6. UPDATE: Actually after a quick google search I see there are reviews, but I'm not sure what sites would acceptable I'm mainly seeing bubbleblabber.com, a few from paste magazine, flickering myth, are these acceptable sites for reviews? Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Flickering Myth and Paste appear to be pro sites. Bubble Blabber may be one as well, although the contributors all have pseudonyms. I think it's safe to use the last two, at any rate. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:32, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
User:EddieHugh Have a look at my responses. I think I have fixed most of the stuff you mentioned, some stuff I don't understand what you were suggesting and need some clarification. Me5000 (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Look at it from the reader's perspective. For instance, "he would have to wait and see which episode represents the show's direction" inevitably leads to the Q that I raised (which episode represented the direction?)... if it can't be answered, then the text that led to it shouldn't be in the article. Some of the text you've added is ok, but there are more problems because of it. e.g., "Napoleon's friends are Pedro, who is the class president" (what class?); "to a woman named Lafawnduh, who he says he is developing a serious relashionship" (spelling and grammar); "Kip hasn't met Lafawnduh" (another contraction); "While Scully said they transferred the characters and premise, but not the events of the film" (grammar). I've done what I can... change my 'oppose' to 'comments' if you wish, but I won't be able to support. EddieHugh (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@EddieHugh: I thin you'Ll agree that an awful lot of work has been put into cleaning this article up since 23W and I adopted it after Me5000 suddenly retired. Would you care to take another look at it? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. It's better. To me, though, it looks a bit patched together: for instance, paras 1 and 2 of Premise have some repetition and could be linked more smoothly. I'll change the title of my contributions to 'comments', as I indicated earlier, so I'll leave my conclusion as neutral. EddieHugh (talk) 15:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to take a stab at bringing the article to FA status—maybe silly since I haven't seen the show, but I feel like it's not far as it is. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 01:47, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, go ahead with the footnotes. I'm going to expand the episode summaries using the Moore sources, but I might not get to it again until tomorrow. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 06:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I had improved the references earlier, but the nominator reverted it, saying that it had "undone a lot of stuff I just changed" (edit conflict?) I extracted the citations and formatted them for sfn; they should be good now. – 23W (talk · contribs)06:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've learned to save a copy just before I do something major like reformat refs, because that happens here and there. It's shitty to have it reverted, but you can't really blame the person who had their own stuff removed, either. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 07:25, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Much better – just what I was looking for. I took a shot at the character descriptions, though the latter half is still kind of short. – 23W (talk · contribs)00:58, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think I'm done whatever I'm going to do with this article: prose is tightened, some refs have been added, others dropped, and everything has been more or less cleaned up. If I weren't involved now, I'd support, as I think the article is sufficiently comprehensive and well written and organized. I hope a couple more editors will take the time to look at it now. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 23:57, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- Hi Curly, appreciate your efforts adopting this nom but having remained open quite a while it does seem to have stalled without achieving sufficient support to promote, so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
This article about the critically acclaimed video game, Dota 2, has underwent extensive and arduous construction since I first created it within minutes of the actual product being announced in 2010. Since then, the page has achieved excellent stability, referencing, completeness and from what others have stated, an unbiased and encyclopedic format. Myself and the other editors have worked in tandem for an article built around consensus, with an extensive degree of discussion involved with most every major edit. I now believe we are prepared to achieve Featured Article status, therefore I will address any questions or concerns by whoever reviews this. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont18:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from EricCorbett
I think this article needs significant work before it meets the prose requirement of FA criterion 1a, and I'm inclined to believe that it's not quite ready. A few examples follow:
"Located on the northeast side of the river is a "boss" called "Roshan" who typically takes multiple team members to kill." Is there a missing word there? "... whom it typically takes multiple team members to kill" perhaps?
"Heroes are strategically powerful player-controlled units with unique special abilities". Why unique and special? Doesn't their uniqueness alone make them special?
"During periods of the year, seasonal events take place in Dota 2, which have an effect upon the overall game experience, with discretion of the player." How could seasonal events not take place during periods of the year, whatever that means?
"Implementation of these seasonal events are not set at an annual basis ...". Not at all sure what that's supposed to mean.
"... though many heroes fill similar roles as others ...". That "as others is clearly redundant.
"... so that they can balance their hero selections" vs. "... whereas killing Heroes grants gold to the killer and any nearby allies". Is it to be hero or Hero?
"The earliest iteration of Dota as a concept emerged in 2003". That doesn't really make sense, as if it was the earliest then it couldn't have been an iteration.
"... prompting other map makers to develop different variants". In what sense could a variant be anything other than different?
"... Steam users can save personal files and settings on their online accounts". You don't store things on an account, you store them in an account.
"Tournaments may be available for spectating in-game via the purchase of tournament tickets in the Dota Store, which provides an alternative to viewing live streams online ... a portion of every ticket purchased goes to the tournament organizers, offering an alternative to viewing competitive games on live streams." Isn't that saying the same thing twice?
"The game has become the most played on Steam, with daily peaks of over 700,000 concurrent player" - this should be changed, "most played" is subjective, it's the most active or populated in terms of concurrent players, also a date or time would be helpful, e.g. as of 2014 or between
website crash sentence needs copyedited to make shorter
much of the origins section seems only relevant to the original Defense of the Ancients, should be cut down and linked to there instead
"the number of unique monthly players was recorded at beyond three million" source says "an active user base of 3 million and peaks of 300,000 concurrent users." I don't agree that they are the same thing.
"Two months following the game's release, Gabe Newell claimed that updates to Dota 2 generated approximately three percent global internet traffic." unsubstantiated claim, source says up to 3%
there is no link to Virtual goods in the entire article, but it discusses them
any third-party sources for the steelseries, Weta and action figures?? and Perfect World / Nexon?
Can we get IceFrog's real name?
"there have been instances of contributors making half a million dollars through such practices." - not in source, this comment is about steam workshop in general, not exclusively dota
does the awards box allow merging of cells?
Lead says "inhospitable community" yet only the Metro review describes it in such a way, a few more sources or a lengthier sentence would help here.
Thank you, Vaypertrail. I've done what I can to implement your suggestions to the best of my abilities. Firstly, IceFrog's real name has never been confirmed, so simply calling him by his pseudonym is the best we can do. The learning curve (cliff) is the most prominent criticism the game has received, but the inhospitable community has been mentioned, as well. I'll look through the critical articles to see if there's anything to do about that issue, but my inclination is to leave that part as is. Anyways, thank you for the thorough commentary. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont18:30, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My Comments
The lead section is at least three to four paragraphs, so that looks good.
The gameplay section adequately covers the aspects of the game.
The production section looks good from beginning to end.
The reception section and other sections looks good as well, but is a bit over detailed so far.
This article may need to undergo a thorough copyedit.
I will indeed give this a thorough copyedit, but could you explain how the reception section is over-detailed? When I wrote it, I actually tried to make it pragmatic, with only the bare necessities for the qualities made known. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont18:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From the lead section, paragraph 3: "Upon its release four years later, Dota 2 was praised by video game critics, who lauded it for its engaging and rewarding gameplay experience, remaining faithful to its predecessor, while also increasing the production quality." The sentence does not flow correctly. Perhaps there should be another "and" before "remaining". However it may be better to re-write the sentence. Axl¤[Talk]10:20, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From the lead section, paragraph 3: "Dota 2 has become the most actively played game on Steam, with highest daily peaks at over 800,000 concurrent players." The reference itself does not support the statement. Axl¤[Talk]10:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
When I updated it to 800,000 players, the reference supported it. Just to be safe, I've changed it back to 700,000, (though I will probably change it back in the near future when it's true).
I am not entirely comfortable with this. The reference itself seems to change/update on a day-to-day basis. It is plausible that the player numbers will change in the future, leaving the reference inappropriate. It would be better to use a third-party reference that doesn't change. Axl¤[Talk]09:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In "Development", the "System requirements" table states that for Windows, version 7 is required. Hidden text in the editing window states "Yes we know the game probably also runs on XP, Vista, and 8. It is not in the source, so you should not add it here". If those other versions do indeed run Dota 2, this requires a suitable source and inclusion in the table. Otherwise readers (including myself) might believe that only version 7 is supported. Axl¤[Talk]10:29, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see what you mean, but I can't find any reliable sources to elaborate upon system requirements lower than was Valve suggests. What would you say about this matter? DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont21:25, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did a search for Dota 2 system requirements and I found this page. As well as including the other versions of Windows, it also indicates a lower amount of minimum memory (RAM). Axl¤[Talk]11:03, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really not sure what to make of this. There are significant differences from the original source: OS versions, CPU, RAM, graphics card & hard disk space. I am more inclined to think that this source is more accurate—but I don't have any way to demonstrate that. Axl¤[Talk]20:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've considered everything, and I have concluded that we should go with what the official site states, rather than what a fan site speculates. Therefore, We're going with the reliable Windows 7 system requirements. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont23:26, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 1: "Towers and creeps serve to divide the map between the two teams and are often the focal point of skirmishes." Creeps are often the focal point(s) of skirmishes? Axl¤[Talk]10:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 1: "they constitute a fixed but recurring resource, though their strategic value may vary depending on the teams' and players' choices." There is no need to mention both the teams and the players. Axl¤[Talk]10:38, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 1: "Located on the northeast side of the river is a "boss" called "Roshan" whom it typically takes multiple team members to kill." this awkward sentence should be re-written. Axl¤[Talk]10:42, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I've attempted to rectify this sentence. Tell me if this works: "Featured across the map are hostile units referred to as "neutrals", which are not aligned to either faction and are primarily located in the forests. Located on the northeast side of the river is a "boss" called "Roshan", who typically requires multiple team members to kill and drops strategically powerful items". DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont21:25, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 2: "There are nine standard game modes and 107 "Heroes" in Dota 2." The paragraph goes on to describe the Heroes. But what are these different standard game modes? Are there "non-standard" game modes? Are the non-standard games the same as the seasonal games? Axl¤[Talk]11:21, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the word "standard". Now, I never added the names of the game modes, because I feared it would tread into the territory of a game guide. What is your suggestion? DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont21:25, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
When I read that sentence, it makes me interested to know what the game modes are. I agree that the article should not be a "game guide", but there is a fine line between "encyclopedic" and "game guide". If you don't think that the game modes should be listed, then I accept that. But in that case, why mention that there are nine game modes? Axl¤[Talk]10:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I note the detailed information about who gets gold when a target is killed/destroyed—which is fine by the way. Axl¤[Talk]10:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 3: "Though gold is granted steadily at a slow rate, the more expensive items are typically only purchased by Heroes who can accumulate gold at a much higher rate, usually by efficiently killing enemy creeps, Heroes, or structures." I'm not sure that structures are "killed". Axl¤[Talk]10:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", paragraph 3: "Along with the gold bounty, killing units and structures provides experience, allowing players to level up their Heroes as they complete objectives." Is the killing of units an objective of itself? Or perhaps delete "as they complete objectives". Axl¤[Talk]10:31, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Gameplay", subsection "Seasonal events": "Dota 2 features a variety of seasonal events, which provides players with the option of playing the game with special game modes." I wonder if this sentence might flow better with "provide" instead of "provides"? Axl¤[Talk]11:48, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Origins", paragraph 1: "When the developer of Warcraft III, Blizzard Entertainment, released the expansion set The Frozen Throne in 2003, Eul ceased development of DotA." Was the release of The Frozen Throne really the reason why Eul ceased development of Dota? Axl¤[Talk]11:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I changed it to "after". It has never been specified why he ceased development of the map, just that he did after The Frozen Throne was released. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont19:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So there is no connection between the release of The Frozen Throne and Eul ceasing development of DotA? Why even mention that The Frozen Throne was released? Axl¤[Talk]09:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, there is a connection, as Eul developed the map until The Frozen Throne was released. For that fact, I would say it is worth mentioning The Frozen Throne's release. Otherwise, there would be no context for when Eul ceased development. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont23:26, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Concept", paragraph 1: "all of whom had attempted to play at a competitive level." What is a "competitive level"? Should this be "professional level"? Axl¤[Talk]11:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Concept", paragraph 2: "Blizzard acquired DotA-Allstars, LLC from Riot Games." What is "DotA-Allstars, LLC"? Axl¤[Talk]10:24, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I had specified DotA-Allstars, LLC in a sentence earlier, but it would appear somebody deleted it. It's been implemented again. Apologies for the confusion- it irritates me, as well. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont19:39, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Design", paragraph 1: "Unranked practice matches can also be played with other human players, AI bots, or alone." Playing alone without bots? Axl¤[Talk]10:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Design", paragraph 1: "In the debut Q&A, IceFrog stated that Dota 2 would serve as the long-term continuation of the mod." Perhaps "Q&A" should be spelt out? Axl¤[Talk]10:36, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Design", paragraph 3: "In addition, teams may be formally identified by the game's software, which automatically recognizes games with players as being team matches and catalogs them as such." I'm not sure what this means. "Games with players"? Are there games without players? Axl¤[Talk]20:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Development", subsection "Merchandise": "In addition, Valve secured various licensing contracts with third-party producers, the first of which, a Dota 2 edition of the SteelSeries QcK+ mousepad, was unveiled at The International 2011." I'm not sure what "The International 2011" is. A video game conference perhaps? The reference does not mention The International 2011. Axl¤[Talk]10:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, if you look, you'll see that it's the annual Dota 2 championship. I fixed the issue with the reference and the clarification, however, so others shouldn't be confused. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont02:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Release", paragraph 1: "After nearly two years of beta testing, Dota 2 transitioned into launch mode on June 21, 2013, and was officially released on July 9, 2013." What does "transitioned into launch mode" mean? Axl¤[Talk]11:07, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Launch mode was the term Valve used to describe the state of the game in the week prior to the launch of Dota 2. However, it's inconsequential, so I've deleted it and there will be no more need for concern. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont02:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Gameplay" has an "Overhead Map" image with several marked locations. I am not able to read the numbers for the yellow markers (secret shops & side lane shops). This might be due to my view settings though. Also, it is necessary to capitalize all of the names? Axl¤[Talk]19:41, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would be inclined to think it's correct, but I don't think it's necessary. I've read references to both lowercase and uppercase usage of the buildings, so it's ambiguous. However, one feature that is consistent is that "Ancient" is always uppercase, even in the middle of sentences. So, done. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont23:09, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
However, I didn't change the secret shops and side lane shops from yellow, because it's a color that correlates to their presence in-game. Is this something you feel needs to be changed from yellow? DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont23:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for changing to lower case. I don't object to yellow. However I am not able to read the white-on-yellow text. Are you able to read that text? Is it possible to change it to, say, black-on-yellow? Axl¤[Talk]07:45, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another concern about the labels is that several labels are hidden beneath other labels. I am not sure what can be done about this. Axl¤[Talk]10:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In "Release", the latter two paragraphs are not about the release. Indeed they are chronologically before the first paragraph. Those two paragraphs should be moved up to "Development". Axl¤[Talk]11:10, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Reception", subsection "Post-release", paragraph 1: "On GameRankings, the game has a score of 89.27%, based on reviews from fifteen critics." I don't think that we can justify precision to one-hundredth of a percent from just 15 reviews. (I am aware that the source does state "89.27%".) Axl¤[Talk]10:15, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
From "Reception", subsection "Post-release", paragraph 2: "The depth, delivery and overall balance of Dota 2 were generally the most commonly-attributed positive features of the game, serving in large as aspects to overlook its learning curve which was considered steep by reviewers." I am not sure what the latter part of the sentence means. Can you clarify this please? Axl¤[Talk]22:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What it means is that the praise for the quality of the game exceeded its criticisms. What would you suggest? Should I simply remove the latter portion of the sentence? DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont05:04, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How about this: "The depth, delivery and overall balance of Dota 2 were generally the most commonly-attributed positive features of the game, which outweighed the relatively steep learning curve." Axl¤[Talk]09:57, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
File:DotA2.jpg - non-free logo, small, FUR filled out - good
File:Dota 2 Gameplay Sep 2013.jpg - non-free screenshot, small, FUR filled out - please change the replaceable to not, since it's not replaceable with a free screenshot, and expand the purpose of use a bit with specifics
File:Dota 2 Overhead Map.jpg - non-free screenshot, small, FUR filled out - please expand the purpose of use to explain why a screenshot of the map is important, and change replaceable to not.
File:Dota2-Ancient-comparison.jpg - non-free screenshot, small, FUR filled out - I'm not convinced that this article justifies a third non-free screenshot simply to show that the aesthetics are very similar from DotA to Dota 2. Seems like screenshot 1 plus the paragraph that the aesthetics and UI are similar to Dota1 covers that just fine.
I'd like to bring up a few points that PresN may have missed.
File:Dota 2 Gameplay Sep 2013.jpg is a screenshot from spectator mode showing a professional game in progress between Alliance and Navi. A screenshot of the team just sitting in the base misses a lot of what Dota actually is. A screenshot from a player's perspective, taken during an engagement, maybe around a tower would be much more effective. The article does not show or mention the game's fog of war at all.
I didn't even know Wikipedia had an annotation system, I thought you'd create a new file, but the current system works well. I would label Roshan, and blue labels would be better than yellow. Still a bit unconvinced about the gameplay screenshot. - hahnchen11:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I've only played the tutorials and one full match of this game. I was terrible at it and got yelled at, so I have no interest in continuing. (90% these nuts...) Because of this, I can't comment on whether the article misrepresents anything about the gameplay. With that out of the way, here are some first comments:
I'm not a fan of that much blank space surrounding the second screenshot. I'd prefer if you narrowed the thumbnail by using two columns for the game features instead of three.
Eh, I still think it's too much. How many other video game sequel articles have two full paragraphs about their predecessors? I don't feel too strongly about it, and if consensus likes it, then whatever, but I'd prefer it be shrunken significantly (to maybe one paragraph in Concept) or removed. Tezero (talk) 01:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Did the critics comment on anything other than gameplay? Graphics? Visual style? Music?
Provisional support; count this as a support vote if the wrap distance is fixed and Origins is shrunken to one paragraph (or the consensus dictates that this does not need to change). I won't be around to verify whether this happens, so I'm trusting you, DarthBotto. Tezero (talk) 16:45, 7 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My main focus during FAC reviews is 1a, so that's what I'll be doing here. The review below is a series of notes written as I read through the article.
Why are there two full dates in the first paragraph of the lead? You specify in the first sentence that it was released in 2013, and full dates are tedious to read, so I don't understand the rationale. I would axe the dates aside from the initial 2013—let the infobox handle the rest.
"a beta testing phase that began in 2011" — It seems important to mention that this was a public beta, as indicated by the Release section.
"In most regions, the game is available exclusively through Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam." — This is vague. Which regions don't fit this pattern, and how can Dota 2 be downloaded without Steam? Needs clarification.
"Each match of Dota 2 is independent" — Also vague. Perhaps, "Dota 2 is played in discrete matches".
The semicolon-based structure of the following sentence is very awkward, and possibly incorrect. Here's a rewrite suggestion:
"Located in Each stronghold iscontains a building called the "Ancient";, whichto win,the oppositea team must destroy the enemy's Ancientto win the match." (italics signify an addition)
"DotA developer IceFrog was hired as lead designer" — It would probably be a good idea to remind the reader that IceFrog developed the mod version of the game, and that Valve was the company that hired him.
"lauded it for its" — Losing the "it for" would tighten up the sentence with no loss in clarity.
"criticised" — This is British English, but the previously-used "leveling up" (single "l") is American English. In line with WP:MOS (last time I read it, at least), you have to pick one and stick with it.
Looks good. I haven't been near a computer long enough today to review the rest of the article, but I should be able to finish up tonight. Also, I apologize if my review so far has seemed harsh, particularly in light of your very generous comments about FU2. I keep my reviews all business, which I think sometimes reads like derision or hostility. I have nothing but respect for people who work hard to reach FA. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I hate to say it, but the first sentence of Gameplay is very poor. You don't introduce the genre, the camera angle or the fundamental mechanics, and you dive into technical details ("standard match"—as opposed to what?) that, given the size of the section, are almost guaranteed to scare away the general interest reader. The New York Times Magazine once highlighted (here) Halo: Combat Evolved's opening sentence as a clear, non-technical summary of the game, so I would recommend that as a model. Starting with a game's most basic and accessible elements keeps the general reader from being alienated.
With that in mind, I would recommend having a non-gamer copyeditor look over the section. Most of the first paragraph, for example, is impenetrable to someone who's never played Dota 2. We don't even discover the player's role until sentence five, after being pummeled by abstract concepts ("these two factions are connected by three main paths"; "periodically spawn in groups and traverse the lanes"; "divided by a river that runs perpendicular to the central lane"; "critical differences conferring a variety of advantages and disadvantages to each side") and jargon ("Ancients", "creeps", "spawn", "lanes", "map", "towers"). And there's a total of one wikilink in the opening paragraph, to make things even more confusing.
The phrase "strategically powerful" appears twice in two sentences, and it makes no sense either time.
In paragraph two of Gameplay, we find out that Heroes have "unique abilities" (what's unique about them?), and that they "fill similar roles" (what is a role?) and "accumulate experience" (no mention of how, and no link to experience point) to reach level 25 (no explanation for what this number means in context). Then we learn that they have different "methods of combat" (no example is provided) based on their "primary attribute" of "Strength, Agility, or Intelligence" (what are these, and what relevance do they have to the game?). I know that Dota 2 has a reputation for being arcane, but surely it's possible to explain this stuff clearly and succinctly.
The opacity of the Gameplay section is just one problem, though. It's also too long and packed with snakes, and it contains dead-weight words and structures that could use serious trimming. In a normal review, I'd point each problem out individually, but the issues with this Gameplay section go too deep for that. Again, I recommend getting a non-gamer (if not two or three) to work through it.
Paragraph three doesn't improve things. More unexplained, unlinked jargon ("inventory slots", "items", "non-player characters") and needlessly abstract language ("additional active or passive abilities", "relative power"). I see the word "killing" used six times in five sentences, and "destroying" four times in five. "Gold" appears eight times in as many sentences. The repetition, jargon and abstraction combine to make my eyes cross about half-way through this paragraph.
As an example of the dead weight to be pruned from this section, here's a sentence rewrite suggestion:
"Dota 2 features a variety of seasonal events, which providethat give players with the option of playing the game withaccess to special game modes with newthat alter the aestheticsvisual styles and objectives."
In my opinion, the annotated map is a violation of WP:GAMEGUIDE. I really don't see how it could have a non-technical purpose. I'd axe the map screenshot entirely: it doesn't add anything.
Also, I second hahnchen's comment about the screenshot. It contains very few of the elements described in the text, which makes it less than useful for cluing in the average reader.
I'll be back later to review the rest of the article. The lead was very strong, but the Gameplay section needs an overhaul. I suspect that the article's second half will be clearer and better, though—its subjects are less difficult. I don't envy anyone who has to explain MOBA gameplay in plain, accessible terms. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Review from JimmyBlackwing, continued
"custom Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos map" — The lead refers to DotA as a mod, which is a much more accessible term than "custom map", not least because mod can be wikilinked. And I recommend mentioning that Blizzard made Warcraft here, rather than later.
"created and updated by an anonymous editor known as 'Eul'" — "Anonymous" means nameless, so Eul cannot be anonymous. Also, "editor" is unnecessary jargon. Suggestion: "created and updated by the pseudonymous designer 'Eul'".
A sentence rewrite suggestion:
"After the release of theThe developer of Warcraft III, Blizzard Entertainment released an expansion setexpansion pack The Frozen Throne in 2003, prompting editors to developclones of the DotA mod competed for popularityvariants inspired by the original map, andwith the dominant one being DotA: Allstars, developed by Steve "Guinsoo" Feak was the most successful."
Another rewrite suggestion:
"With the assistance of a fellow clan member,his friend Steve "Pendragon" Mescon, heFeak created anthe official DotA community hub at the website dota-allstars.com and formed a holding company for it called DotA-Allstars, LLC."
"the developer role was inherited by his fellow clan member "IceFrog"." — "a friend, under the pseudonym "IceFrog", took his place."
A rewrite:
"The popularity of DotA increased significantly,:as the mapit became one of the most popular mods in the world, and, by 2008,as well as a prominent electronic sports title by 2008."
"In May 2009, as the game's emerging multiplayer online battle arena genre became more prominent" — I have no idea what this means.
Another rewrite:
"According to Valve'sValve Corporationfounder and managing director, Gabe Newell, the company's investment in Defense of the Ancients began whenwith the collective interest of several veteran employees,—including Team Fortress designer Robin Walker, programmer Adrian Finol and project manager Erik Johnson,— became interested in the mod andall of whom had attempted to play it competitively."
Another:
"As their interest in the game intensified, They began to corresponding with IceFrog, inquiring as to whatabout his long-term plans he had for the mod."
"eventually culminated" — "Eventually" is an unnecessary word.
"the company's facilities" —> "the company".
A rewrite:
"TheAs a resultantof the surge of traffic crashed, Game Informer's servers crashed."
"Erik Johnson addressed the confusion over the written form of the brand name, citing it as "Dota", rather than "DotA", due to its context as a concept, rather than an acronym for "Defense of the Ancients"." — I would suggest a way to chop up this snake, but I don't understand what it means.
A rewrite:
"Shortly after a public questions and answers session by IceFrog on the DotA official website in which he elaborated upon his new recruitmentabout the new game, Valve filed a trademark claim for the name "Dota"., whichAt Gamescom 2011, Gabe Newell discussed assaid that the trademark was a necessary measure for developing a sequel with the already identifiable brand name at Gamescom 2011."
"the right to a trademark for the DotA name" —> "the right to trademark the DotA name".
"due to their views that it was a community asset" —> "which they believed was a community asset".
"asset, so they" —> "asset. They".
As I continue to read this article, it's becoming clear that a basic review isn't going to cut it. The prose suffers from snakes, vagueness and bloat too serious to address here. You need to find one to three copyeditors to work over the entire article, from Gameplay to Professional competition. Until the prose is cleaned up, I'm afraid that I have to oppose this nomination. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 17:50, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Withdraw - With JimmyBlackwing's review, it is apparent that this article will not receive Featured Article status for the time being. It's frustrating no less because many of the suggestions correlate to features from the article that were present prior, yet were recommended to be removed over time by other reviewers. So, if you are surmising I am disappointed, you are correct, as this article's status quo seems to be determined by myriad individuals' personal preferences. DARTHBOTTOtalk•cont19:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
This article is about a Canadian Paralympic swimmer, winner of multiple medals at London, who has recently announced she's switching to the Netherlands national team. I'd like to see where this stands; it was listed as GA in October 2012, and she's been out of competition since the Olympics, so there's been little new content. As far as I know, I've exhausted all reliable sources. -- Zanimum (talk) 19:46, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: I'm sorry to appear negative, but while the article is informative on the details of this athlete's career it does not, at present, come near to FA standard. It doesn't seem to have had much preparation before this nomination, and there are numerous faults apparent even on a fairly quick lookover:
Lead: Too short at present: it should act as a broad summary of the whole article. It also has an awkward double-link on "SM10 classification"; it would be better to explain these terms in simple language rather than requiring the link. What is a "high-level swimmer"? "in the process." is followed by "In the process". Conventionally, world records are held for particular disciplines, not in them.
Article structure: WP featured biographies have a fairly standard format which is broadly chronological, starting with early life, going on to first career steps, early achievements, career highlights etc. Since Mortimer is only 21 the chronology will obviously be incomplete, but the general format should be followed.
The prose should be formal and encyclopedic, not magaziney as in "Daughter of Craig and Janice, she began swimming at age 2; Janice is co-owner of Oakville Swim Academy." The main subject, incidentally, should never be introduced into a section or paragraph by a pronoun
Other prose infelicities include "the Worlds" with no explanation; "isn't" (informal); "she's annoyed" (ditto) – these are examples, not a full list.
Much of the writing is anecdotal, and sometimes clumsy to the point of being incomprehensible, e.g. "She wears an elastic band that she snaps, when thinking a negative thought; being "incredibly hard on myself", it helps her realize the frequency of times she thinks "down", in an effort to change her mental perspective".
I note from further down in the article that there are many short, single-sentence paragraphs.
Overall the article needs some pretty comprehensive treatment before it can be considered worthy of promotion to FAC. Rather than leaving it here, it would be better to withdraw it, send it to peer review for a more detailed assessment of its faults, and bring it back when it has had some thorough preparation on the basis of the FAC criteria. Brianboulton (talk) 23:42, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- Scanning the article myself, I can only agree with Brian re. the shortfalls in terms of the FA criteria, so I'll archive this shortly. Please don't be discouraged but act upon the advice, and I hope we see an improved version of the article back here in due course. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 9 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support: the article is 1)supported sufficiently and completely by reliable citations, 2)its format is according to Wikipedia's guidelines and 3)is linguistically solid Grandia01 (talk) 11:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I support this article becoming a featured article; it is rich in information and has undergone a rigorous edit process to ensure all information present it accurate and sourced. The article should include however more pictures of images to be in full par with a featured article. I also recommend the promoting of the article ali ibn abi talib to featured status, it is a complete article with lots of images info and very good citations. Hooperag (talk) 21:45, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for such a huge nomination, doesn't there have to be a good article review or peer review first? Anyway, I can point out a few problems:
The headings are too long and have links in them (discouraged per MOS:HEAD).
No pictures at all. At least one image is recommended for it to even be a good article.
Although it is written well, it is written as though it was a story and not an encyclopedia entry.
Oppose for the moment. The content is not my field of expertise, but from a purely MOS point of view, it isn't ready for the reasons articulated by Epicgenius. --ukexpat (talk) 13:23, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
not asking you to change your opinions here, but I fixed the problems of the headings and did other improvements also (see details of change histories please) just to let you know Grandia01 (talk) 13:17, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment -- Although this page wasn't transcluded to WP:FAC, it has received commentary indicating more work is needed to get it to FA status, so I'll be archiving it shortly. From my own observations, I'd add that the structure seems fragmented owing to the many very short sections and subsections, and the expression needs to be more objective, based just on reading the lead. I'd recommend that if further work is done then you should take the article to Peer Review, as well as GAN, before considering another run at FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhere between 800,000 and 1,200,000 people died at Treblinka, second only to Auschwitz. More Polish Jews died in its gas chambers than at any other single location. And besides for the death toll, we have the futile but heroic prisoner uprising, its neglect for a time in the postwar years, the long wait to bring those responsible to justice...it makes for interesting, if not especially happy, reading. Poeticbent and I have addressed all issues from the first FAC, and I put the article through a rigorous peer review of my own after the FAC failed. With all that said, we present to you the finest English-language encyclopedia article on Treblinka in the world. We will do our best to address your concerns promptly; it won't be hard, since the article's about as good as it's ever going to get. AmericanLemming (talk) 19:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Recent history of the article
The article has been expanded and completely rewritten in the past eight months:
1. Poeticbent improved and expanded the article beginning in August and continuing through most of September.
2. In late October, Khazar2, one of Wikipedia's best GA reviewers (now retired, sadly), reviewed the article and recommended a thorough copyedit, which I performed.
3. Based on the comprehensive GA review, Poeticbent decided to nominate at FAC in early November. I performed a second copyedit during this time.
4. Squemish Ossifrage made 100+ comments at the FAC review page in late November, which took Poeticbent two or three weeks to address.
5. The FAC was archived in mid-December, leading me to embark on a third and "final" copyedit of the article.
6. On May 8th I reread the article and made 45 edits to further improve the prose.
We've waited to renominate because I've been busy with school, but now I have time to address any concerns that may come up during the FAC review. AmericanLemming (talk) 19:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't understand what the 'Individuals responsible' section covers: it includes a few dozen people ranging from Himmler to SS corporals, and is obviously only a partial listing of the people involved in establishing and running Treblinka. Can you please clarify the purpose of this section, and its inclusion/exclusion criteria? Nick-D (talk) 05:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that I'll need to defer to Poeticbent on this question, seeing as he is the one responsible for the list's creation. However, I believe that its purpose is to clarify who the major players at Treblinka were and their role within the camp. As such, I would not be opposed to removing individuals who are not mentioned in the article proper and/or who do not currently have articles, especially those in the "Staff" section. Before doing so, I would like to give Poeticbent a chance to respond, though. AmericanLemming (talk) 05:51, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a standard section in most serious monographs sometimes called "Glossary" and "Index of names" (or similar), with their relative jurisdiction summarized and i-links added for easy access. For an article this size, having just one i-link in bodytext is not enough in my view. Besides, the list was added years ago, long before GAN, and if it survived until now I think it should stay. Poeticbenttalk03:53, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As this comment has not been addressed, I'm shifting to oppose this nomination: I don't think that FA level articles should include extraneous material such as this. Nick-D (talk) 05:28, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You say Nick-D that your comment has not been addressed, when the two of us addressed your comment right above. You must mean something different perhaps so please elaborate on why you think the list is extraneous (i.e. not belonging or irrelevant). I'm opened for suggestions, and I'm sure AmericanLemming would agree. Also, would anybody else please give us some feedback here? We all want the article to look the best obviously. Poeticbenttalk13:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
While I would rather not remove the list entirely, which I know is what Nick-D would prefer, I do have to admit that the current inclusion criteria are rather arbitrary. In my opinion, I think we can improve the list in one of two ways. The first would be to shorten it to include only the Nazi leadership, Treblinka commandants, and deputy commandants. We would then retitle it "Officials responsible" or some other such designation that indicates it's not a complete list. The second would be to remove the list entirely, which would not be my preferred course of action. Either way, I think we should copy and paste the list as it currently stands into an "Individuals responsible for Treblinka extermination camp" article. That way we can include more detail than is really justifiable in the main article. I have a Word document with 60-some names of Treblinka Trawnikis not included at present; a stand-alone list article would allow us to add them. AmericanLemming (talk) 20:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D: I've now moved the majority of the list into its own article titled List of individuals responsible for Treblinka extermination camp. All that remains is the "Nazi leadership", "Treblinka commandants", and "deputy commandants" section. I hope that this addresses your concern about the inclusion of extraneous material with ambiguous inclusion criteria. I think that the table in its truncated form serves the useful purpose of giving the reader a well-organized summary of the most important individuals responsible for Treblinka, which it previously did not. If you still want to get rid of the whole table, I'm open to that possibility, but I don't see the need to. AmericanLemming (talk) 22:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What's the purpose of the 'Nazi leadership' section?; it seems a rather partial list (not least as it omits Hitler). Nick-D (talk) 08:57, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've now deleted Himmler and retitled it "Operation Reinhard leadership". The table is now laser-focused on the most pertinent individuals, and the inclusion criteria are very specific and clear. It was a bit of a pain to move most of the table to its own article, but I think it's all for the best. AmericanLemming (talk) 23:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
2. The "Memorial at Treblinka" image be removed from the slightly awkward template, and moved properly into the section ("Treblinka I") it's creeping into.
3. Armia Krajowa, Deutsche Reichsbahn and all other foreign phrases into italics, please. This may just be an oversight? A bracketed translation would be nice too.
Done. I think I've italicized them all now, and I've translated all of them except for the SS officer rank names. Should I do those, too? AmericanLemming (talk) 03:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
4. Perhaps the "Individuals responsible" could be moved into the form of a drop-down menu, like is sometimes seen in sports articles where big templates are used?
I thought the same thing when I first saw it. We can change the lettering manually (which is a pain), or we can just be consistent and use only template:fen or template:ref. For a quick explanation of what's going on I have copied and pasted part of a discussion from the talk page: AmericanLemming (talk) 08:01, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have two questions about the notes now: one, why is the size of the font for notes a-j smaller than the size for notes j-o, and two, why are there two note js? AmericanLemming (talk) 05:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not done. Most likely a programming error (or lack of communication) between two templates {{efn}} and {{Ref}}, here and here. We use them both side by side for convenience. Poeticbenttalk06:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I have manually fixed the problem by shifting the letter of all of the Ref notes down one (k to l, for example) both in the note section itself and in the body of the article. As for the notes a-j and k-p being different sizes, I don't think there's anything we can do about that. AmericanLemming (talk) 07:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed that instance as well as a few others. Some remain, but I believe that's justified in an article of this length (9,137 words at last count), especially seeing as the ones I left in are in a different section than the first link. AmericanLemming (talk) 21:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The MOS is pretty clear about this - "a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead." (see WP:OVERLINK). Brigade Piron (talk) 21:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
7. I'd personally recommend that more pictures from commons:Category:Treblinka extermination camp are included. Don't forget, few people read an entire article. If the pictures can tell some more of the story too, all the better.
Done. I've added 8 more photos, bringing us from 15 to 23. Do let me know if you have any objections on placement, captions, or inclusion. Also, if you think that's not enough, then please do tell me which places in the article need photos; we're kind of running out of room at this point. :) AmericanLemming (talk) 07:23, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
8. The list of books cited is extremely long. Certainly don't get rid of any, but consider formatting them in columns of reduced size like like this
Done. It took me a while, but I figured out how to make the font smaller. Thanks for the link to the article; I copied and pasted the code directly from there. AmericanLemming (talk) 02:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Thank you for addressing my comments. The note issue will, unfortunately, have to be resolved though I cannot say that this changes my vote. Brigade Piron (talk) 16:03, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've collapsed the "Individuals responsible" table and converted all the ref notes to efn notes, which I believe addresses your two remaining concerns. Thanks for the review! AmericanLemming (talk) 20:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)
"When the war ended, destitute locals started walking up the so-called Black Road (as they began to call it) in search of manmade nuggets shaped from melted gold in order to buy bread.": Sounds odd; I'm guessing you could buy more than a loaf of bread with a gold nugget. Simplest fix might be just to delete "in order to buy bread", or if you want to describe them as "starving", that could work.
"Seidel Straße", "Himmelstraße": Many readers have no idea what an ess-zed is; you might spell it Strasse, or link it, or include an explanatory footnote at the first occurrence of ß.
Tremendous amount of work has been put into this article at the time of its last FAC nomination with hundreds of comments already addressed from User:Squeamish Ossifrage, User:AmericanLemming and others including User:Casliber, User:Nikkimaria and User:Piotrus. There were no remaining issues (not to my knowledge) after the ones from User:Hamiltonstone were implemented soon thereafter. The closure was almost procedural because we were all exhausted… and loosing track of things, after a month and a half of work. User:AmericanLemming is correct in that our Treblinka article is "the finest English-language encyclopedia article on Treblinka in the world." Go check it out. It is just an article though, not a book (41 pages in PDF with 0.7 in margins on letter size paper) so perhaps even more could be added with time. For the record, I am (and have been) a significant contributor to this article, and I am also responsible for the GA sticker awarded by User:Khazar2. I will be addressing some of the comments from the reviewers in here because I specialize in this area and know the subject like no-one else. Please bare with me… it is going to be gradual. My only suggestions are as follows: the File:Treblinka Memorial 05.jpg is in a wrong place after it has been cannibalized from the multiple image template and reduced to thumb-size. It shows the quarry stones at Treblinka II, not at Treblinka I. The internal link to Warsaw Ghetto Uprising have been removed in favor of a pipe from the “subsequent uprising” which is insufficient. I don’t understand why the File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG has also been reduced to thumb-size. I totally agree with User:Brigade Piron that a few more carefully selected images would be beneficial with this amount of sheer prose. Support the nomination wholeheartedly. Poeticbenttalk20:33, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Poeticbent: I have changed the size of the two images back to 238px, and the piping has been removed from "subsequent uprising". Hope that addresses your concerns. I've added eight new photos to the article (Wannsee Conference villa, Treblinka I announcement, carbon monoxide chemical formula, Eberl, Stangl, Franz, Treblinka tile, and Simon Wiesenthal) and changed the location and alignment of many of the others. Feel free to comment on the inclusion, placement, size, alignment, and/or caption of any image in the article, or just make the changes you want yourself. :) AmericanLemming (talk) 07:39, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG: source images here are a bit concerning - File:WW2-Holocaust-Europe.png is partly sourced to Wikipedia, while File:Polska_okupacja_1944.png and File:Generalne_gubernatorstwo_1945.png do not identify where their information is coming from
File:Umschlagplatz_loading.jpg: direct source link is dead
Done. Discontinued link replaced with a couple of working ones. This is a common problem: vanishing weblinks to museum pieces in public domain... too bad we don't have a way of fixing it permanently. Poeticbenttalk14:45, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
File:Treblinka_Cremation_Pit.jpg: how do we know that this corporation has released the work?
File:Samuel_Willenberg_Treblinka_2_sierpnia_2013_01.JPG: I would suggest that the drawings are enough of a focal point in this image for this to be considered a derivative work. What is the copyright status of the drawings? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria: Thank you very much for the image review. Unfortunately, tonight I added eight more images, one of which is a non-free upload (Treblinka tile). The new images include Wannsee Conference villa, Treblinka I announcement, carbon monoxide chemical formula, Eberl, Stangl, Franz, Treblinka tile, and Simon Wiesenthal. You'll probably want to review those, too. AmericanLemming (talk) 07:46, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
File:Umschlagplatz_loading.jpg: USHMM direct link is dead, and it's not at all clear that they would have held any copyright to this image. Can you elaborate on the licensing?
File:DR_Class_52.80_entering_tunnel.jpg: are the creator and uploader the same person? If not, what was the original source of this image?
HeizDampf and Uwe B. Pfotenhauer are the same person, if that's what you're asking. As far as I can tell, Uwe B. Pfotenhauer took the photo and uploaded it to the German Wikipedia (as HeizDampf) that same day. Then this Bermicourt chap went and uploaded it to the Commons two years later. AmericanLemming (talk) 05:40, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
File:Treblinka_Cremation_Pit.jpg: how do we know that this corporation has released the work?
I quote Poeticbent's response from the first FAC, where you asked the same question: "Interesting. If you look at the upload description, it says that the source is http://www.gigatel.co.uk with author Llion Roberts (i.e. Gigatel Cyf. Ltd) but the file description box contains different link to http://www.diapositive.pl. However, we also have other photographs of that memorial if you think that the licensing isn't clear enough".
File:Samuel_Willenberg_Treblinka_2_sierpnia_2013_01.JPG: I would suggest that the drawings are enough of a focal point in this image for this to be considered a derivative work. What is the copyright status of the drawings?
File:Irmfried_Eberl.jpg is tagged as lacking author info, and lacks the "Reasonable evidence" and second tag required by the current licensing
File:Stangl,_Franz.jpg is a non-free image that includes no clear copyright information or FUR for use in this article, and is likely not justifiable. Same with File:Kurt_Hubert_Franz.jpg
Image copyright policy is not something I understand very well. But what I think you're saying here is that since the photographs on the commandants are not being used in this article to illustrate the subject of the article, the only way to use them would be to confirm that they are in the public domain, which will be difficult, or get permission to use them with a Creative Commons/GNU license, which will also be difficult. So we're probably going to have to remove them. AmericanLemming (talk) 06:28, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria: Besides for the camp commandants, all of the other issues have been taken care of. Poeticbent replaced File:Treblinka_Cremation_Pit.jpg with another image of the memorial, cropped File:Samuel_Willenberg_Treblinka_2_sierpnia_2013_01.JPG to make the drawings less of a focal point, and added the new and improved version of the graph. He reverted my removal of the camp commandant images, though, so that issue remains.
Poeticbent: Could you explain exactly why you reverted my edit? My understanding is that the presence of the camp commandant photos is one of the few remaining issues holding up promotion, along with prose (now hopefully addressed by Folklore1's copyedit) and a few sources whose reliability has been questioned. I want to keep the images as much as you do, but I'm just not sure that we'll be able to justify their use per Wikipedia's copyright policy. Anyway, we're going to have to find more information about their copyright status if we want to use them in the article. Do you want to do that, or should I? I can start working on it tomorrow afternoon. Let me know what your thoughts are. AmericanLemming (talk) 20:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done All points have been addressed.
File:Treblinka_Cremation_Pit.jpg which lacks evidence of permission from Gigatel Cyf Ltd. corporation (not a living author to my mind) has been tagged for possible deletion in seven days, and replaced with File:Treblinka Cremation Pit 2.jpg which is a crop of the photograph taken at Treblinka by a friend of mine, User:Boston9 from Warsaw, who also took the photograph of Samuel Willenberg.
My apologies. I have the article on my watch list but not the image files, so I didn't realize you'd taken care of the commandant photos. I'm glad I worded my question as politely as I did! Thanks for dealing with all of the image copyright issues; that's not my strong suit. Anyway, if Nikkimaria is satisfied with your changes, we may very well be a few WP:RS noticeboard postings away from FA status. :) AmericanLemming (talk) 20:55, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AmericanLemming, I have a query about the sourcing. The first sentence, saying it was a death camp, was sourced to the Jerusalem Post, which in turn referred to a Daily Mail story about a television programme on forensic work conducted there. If there's anything else like that in the article, it would need to be located and replaced. SlimVirgin(talk)00:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. Well, I offer up for your scrutiny the second paragraph of the "Day of the revolt and survivors" subsection, as well as the entire "Archeological studies" subsection, as both rely heavily on online newspaper articles. So is the problem with using online newspaper articles in general or just using the Daily Mail in particular? (I understand that the Daily Mail is not a reliable source.) AmericanLemming (talk) 04:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I don't think I would use any newspapers or similar tertiary sources (e.g. Jewish Virtual Library), except for using news stories as primary sources (reports from the period, or later interviews with those involved). Would it not be better to source this entirely to academic sources? The archaeologists, for example, must have written up their studies for peer review. Sorry, I don't meant to be negative. I can see that a tremendous amount of work has gone into this, and I applaud everyone involved. SlimVirgin(talk)17:40, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If newspapers were not WP:RS, then Wikipedia would have absolutely no post-1970 content. Even the Daily Mail has editorial guidance and thus meets the criteria. I would worry if Aryan Front or (perhaps) Socialist Worker was cited, but to my knowledge, there is absolutely no reason that mainstream contemporary newspapers cannot be used... Brigade Piron (talk) 08:59, 13 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Featured articles use the best possible sources available. Thus peer-reviewed scholarly publications are preferred to the popular press.—indopug (talk) 02:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
SlimVirgin: Thank you for your comment. I agree with you that academic sources are preferable to newspaper articles, if they are available. The difficulty with the archeological dig and the last two survivors of the camp uprising is that the developments are so recent that we have no academic sources on them. Thus, I'm afraid upgrading the quality of the sourcing in those three paragraphs of the article is non-actionable. The lead archeologist (Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls) is going to write a book about the dig, but until that's published, what we've got is what we've got.
However, I did replace the Daily Mail with another source. It may not be much more reliable, but at least it's not the Daily Mail. As far as some of the other tertiary sources go, particularly the Jewish Virtual Library and the Aktion Reinhard Camps website, I'll keep digging to see if I can find some academic sources to replace at least a few of them.
And by all means, if you find any other sources of questionable worth besides those relating to the archeological dig or the two last survivors, do let me know. I'll see what I can do. AmericanLemming (talk) 04:34, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AmericanLemming, as you asked below for pointers, these are some of the issues with the lead, in case it's helpful. It begins by calling it an extermination camp, but then explains lower down that it was a labour camp too; that contradiction should be smoothed out. It uses the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team (HEART), a tertiary website run by private researchers, rather than using the sources they cite (e.g. HEART's Clancy Young is cited for the dates, instead of Young's source).
There seems to be a copyright violation where a book has been uploaded to the Hampshire High School Exchange Program and the lead links to it (current footnote 11). That more people died at Treblinka than anywhere other than Auschwitz is sourced to the Associated Press. There's no need to use tertiary sources such as the Jewish Virtual Library, and the point in the footnote about the Anglo-Saxon difference between forced and slave labour seems odd and unnecessary. Regarding the BBC documentary for the exhumation of bodies, there are scholarly sources that deal with this. The final lead paragraph should be radically trimmed; it's currently the longest paragraph but deals only with official ceremonies, the museum, etc. The lead used to say that an unknown number of Romani people were killed there, but that has been removed; I would consider restoring it.
Looking beyond the lead, the beginning of the first section – about the ghetto system being unsustainable and the Wannsee conference – is sourced to a Danish website for primary and secondary schools. SlimVirgin(talk)22:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to comment on the sourcing and other matters; I really appreciate specific comments like those listed above. I have put them below in bullet form so that I can keep track of them. AmericanLemming (talk) 22:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
extermination camp/labour camp mix-up in lead
Done. Note added to the first sentence. If you're interested in knowing more, see the "Usage of the word camp in the article" section below on this page.
Hi AmericanLemming, perhaps it would help to compile a small list of the specialist secondary sources, then more or less stick to what they say, noting disagreements along the way. You could then augment that with primary-source material, so long it's material the secondary sources have acknowledged.
For each source it's important to be able to explain why you used that source for that point, i.e. why that was the most appropriate source (or one of several appropriate ones) for the particular issue. SlimVirgin(talk)00:26, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, could you remember to add page numbers for the journal articles? For example, 27 pages is too large a range here – Friedman, Philip (January 1954). "The Jewish Ghettos of the Nazi Era". Jewish Social Studies (Indiana University Press) 16 (1): 61–88. I'd quite like to check what the source says in support of that point about the ghettos. SlimVirgin(talk)03:42, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Also, we need a time reference for videos – for example, for the Suchomel interview (footnote 78b in the gas chambers section), which is on YouTube. That sentence could use a rewrite, by the way. He says they could "perhaps" (vielleicht) hear; but the point was not what they could hear, it was that they were panicking, and the word "even" needs to go (the sentence needs to be rewritten) because that's the first thing to expect in that situation. SlimVirgin(talk)21:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks for letting me know. I wasn't sure whether the page range was for the entire article or solely for the information being cited. I've given more specific page numbers for all four scholarly sources I've added. The relevant quote from the source on the ghettos is as follows:
"In the ghetto itself the Jews were compressed in crowded quarters, located for the most part in the poorest sections of the town, without parks or squares. The food supply was strictly and precisely controlled and the earning capacities of the inhabitants were reduced to a minimum. The combination of all these sanitary and economic conditions served to raise the rate of mortality. The ghettos were designed to serve the Nazis as laboratories for testing the methods of slow and "peaceful" destruction of whole groups of human beings." AmericanLemming (talk) 21:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's quite useful to have both the page range and the page that's your reference, but I don't know how to do that with the templates (I don't use them myself). In case it's helpful, there's an EB article on Treblinka by Michael Berenbaum here, which you can use as a source for the numbers (more killed there than anywhere other than Auschwitz). The Snyder footnote 6 is unclear, by the way; the short ref needs a page number, and the long ref is confusing (that is, is Snyder the source or the others, and what are they saying?).
I'm concerned about the range of numbers. I'm not seeing that same range in the sources I've looked up. Berenbaum, for example, says "750,000 or more," and Yad Vashem says 870,000. Which secondary sources support 1,200,000?
The secondary source for 1,200,000 is Edward Kopówka & Paweł Rytel-Andrianik (2011). The source is in Polish which is my first language. Please ask any specific question you'd like. You can find some background to that number at the Franciszek Ząbecki article which I wrote specifically for Treblinka. Poeticbenttalk03:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder whether it would make sense to withdraw the nomination so you have more time to go through the article. Then perhaps you could request a peer review, or even go straight to peer review. SlimVirgin(talk)02:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't think this is really necessary right now... The article is very close to meeting all FA requirements as far as I can see. Poeticbenttalk03:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the information about the figures, Poeticbent. Does Kopówka & Paweł Rytel-Andrianik (2011) agree with the 1,200,000 figure, or is it simply reported as Ząbecki's view? Do any other secondary sources agree with Ząbecki? It makes sense to use Polish historians here, but the language issue introduces a verifiability problem. The policy suggests adding relevant portions to the footnote or talk page, and if quoting always adding a translation, again in the footnote. But I know that's a nuisance when there's a lot of it, so I'm not sure what to suggest. SlimVirgin(talk)21:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, SlimVirgin. The cumulative estimates for Treblinka (similar to other death camps) are controversial. There's no such thing as a quotable single figure that wouldn't be challenged by someone else. However, some figures are more prominent than others if not more definitive. Reputable historians including Kopówka & Rytel-Andrianik usually limit themselves to reporting the findings, that's all. Kopówka writes on page 114: "Na tablicy informacyjnej przed wejściem na teren obozu widnieje liczba 800 tys. Należy ją przyjąć jako podstawę... Wyliczenie liczby zamordowanych opiera się głównie na dokumentach Niemieckiej Kolei Rzeszy, wykradzionych przez polskiego kolejarza Franciszka Ząbeckiego, i na różnego rodzaju obliczeniach z gett okupowanej Polski." On the information board at the entrance to the camp there's a number of 800,000 victims quoted. It ought to be seen as the basis... It has been drawn from the German waybills stolen by Franciszek Ząbecki at the control house; but also, based on estimates from the ghettos in occupied Poland themselves. -- Kopówka devoted a small chapter in his book to various estimates beginning on page 113 ("10. liczba ofiar", see PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB. [21]). All known estimates are mentioned there in a matter-of-factly way, from the unrealistic 3 million by Vasily Grossman, down to 1,582,000 by Ryszard Czarkowski, to 780,000 by Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz, down to 700,000 followed by 900,000 (from Wolfgang Scheffler) by Düsseldorf court, Raul Hilberg’s 750,000 and Martin Gilbert’s 850,000 (same as Yitzhak Arad’s 850,000) followed by Czesław Madajczyk’s 700,000–800,000 and finally 713,555 by Sturmbannführer Höfle. Ząbecki's estimate, from his already famous Wspomnienia dawne i nowe [Old and New Memories] published in 1977, is confirmed by Piotr Ząbecki, who wrote the biography of his own father Franciszek for the Życie Siedleckie newspaper. Ząbecki's number is 1,297,000.[22] The third highest after Ryszard Czarkowski’s estimated 1,582,000 victims. This is all we know. Poeticbenttalk01:21, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again. What I'm wondering is whether any historians support Ząbecki's estimate. Our article emphasizes it over other estimates, but that emphasis seems to be based only on Ząbecki himself. The academic secondary sources I've looked at cite lower figures. For example, Timothy Snyder (Snyder 2011, p. 273) cites 780,863. This article used to do the same; the emphasis on Ząbecki's figure is a recent development. I'm concerned that the article is deviating from the standard view, and without signalling that it's doing it. SlimVirgin(talk)03:28, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Timothy Snyder citing 780,863 is simply repeating the 713,555 from Reichsbahn quoted by Sturmbannführer Höfle with the addition of 67,308 persons in 1943 from another German document (713,555 + 67,308 = 780,863). Basic arithmetic; however, such exactness is almost laughable; because one of the least reliable figures in my view are the Reichsbahn train tickets sold to SS. It is known for a fact that more trains came, on top of the road transport. Our Wikipedia article should present the estimates exactly how I described them above. All sources ought to be named even though not all of them have Wikipedia articles.** Ząbecki is not above the others. He saw and counted the cattle wagons passing through that's why his mention matters so much, but he could not have known how many victims were locked inside exactly. He opted for the known maximum capacity rather than less. This was not 100% true; the average was 5,000 people per trainset except for the Grossaktion Warsaw (1942).[23]
*) Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz, “Obóz zagłady Treblinka,” in: Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, I, 1946, p. 142.
*) Ryszard Czarkowski, Cieniom Treblinki [To Shadows of Treblinka], Wydawn. Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej 1989. ISBN-10: 831107724X.
Done. I have transferred all of the above information into article's section "Death count". Please take a look. Thanks. Your further comments are welcomed. Poeticbenttalk06:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Temporary absence:
SlimVirgin and Poeticbent: I just wanted to let you two know that I won't be available to work on further improving the article's sourcing this upcoming week; I'm studying abroad in Spain and I've got two essays, two presentations, a lengthy reflection paper, and a final on my plate. Poeticbent, do you think you could address SlimVirgin's concerns about some of the sources while I'm temporarily off-wiki? I'm not sure how much more time the FAC coordinators are going to give us to improve the article; Treblinka is the second to last FAC on the list, and the coordinators tend to either archive or promote such FACs in fairly short order. AmericanLemming (talk) 19:01, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Driveby comment about the lead The lead has an inelegant "sea of blue" look to it. I feel it would appear much more readable if you cut overlinking (genocide, pyre, WW2, mass graves, Jews, Warsaw) and removed the references (not needed per WP:LEAD).—indopug (talk) 02:28, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed all of the links you suggested along with one extra one ([[|unfree labor|prisoner]]. Also, I've removed all inline citations except those regarding the number of people who died at the camp, seeing as those numbers are quite controversial.
As for the inline citation about "men, women, and children" dying there, I believe that it refers to the preceding three sentences as a whole, and as such I have moved it one sentence back to make it clear that it's the citation for the number of people killed, not just the "men, women, children" part.
Anyway, I hope that addresses your concerns, and the reason why I kept a few inline citations is because the other main editor of the article, Poeticbent, feels very strongly that, given the controversy over the number of people killed at Treblinka, we need to be very clear about where we're getting those numbers from. AmericanLemming (talk) 05:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I disagree with the removal of many of the above links from the lede. The problem with people who don't deal with the Holocaust controversies in their wiki experience is that they normally don't realize how serious it is out there in the world of external sources. Please put the links back especially the ones at the end of paragraphs. We need to lead by example, and I'm sure User:Indopug will understand. Poeticbenttalk05:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I've reverted my own edits for now. I don't have a strong feeling on this issue one way or another; I just want the article to get promoted to FA status. Anyway, I will need clarification from both of you on what exactly your positions are on this issue: Poeticbent, do you feel that we should keep both the internal links (World War II, genocide, Jews, etc.) and the inline citations ({{sfn|Arad|1987|p=37}}, for example), or just one or the other? And indopug, what do you say to Poeticbent's argument that an article related to the Holocaust is controversial enough that we should cite our sources, even in the lead? Which is more important, readability or backing up our claims everywhere, including the lead?
Also, I'll throw in this quote from Squemish Ossifrage from this article's first FAC: "Not strictly actionable, but material cited in the article's body is not required to be cited in the lead. The idea is that the lead is purely a summary or abstract of the following article. Opinions seem mixed here at FAC about whether FA articles must or simply may take that approach; I prefer it, but I wouldn't oppose on those grounds alone." AmericanLemming (talk) 20:07, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see no need for rehashing the self-explanatory notes from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Citations, but here's the relevant quote for the record: "... there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations..." End of quote. Read the whole section if you want. For me, that's enough of a guideline. Please do not worry, AmericanLemming. This discussion has no bearing on the outcome of your FAC. Poeticbenttalk21:44, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comments on prose. This is a hugely important article, and I commend the authors on their word in bringing it close to FA status. Awkward sentences abound however.
Many instances of "the crawler excavator" (I counted four). Why 'the'? If the crawler excavator is significant to the history of the camp, it should be explained.
Well, there was only one crawler excavator, and it dug the mass graves for the corpses, then dug up the mass graves, and thereafter dug the cremation pits where the corpses from the mass graves where buried. It was kind of important. However, I have changed all four instances of "the crawler excavator" to "a crawler excavator". AmericanLemming (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Treblinka is referred to as a camp divided into two sections (sometimes called subcamps, sometimes called camps), but in the Treblinka II section there are suddenly 'Camp 1', 'Camp 2' and 'Camp 3'. The terminology for the whole, the main subdivisions and the subsubdivisions isn't consistent.
Fixing this issue would be difficult, but I personally don't think it gets in the way of the reader's understanding, as they can figure out which camp we're referring to from the context. However, if you still think that it's worth fixing, take a look at my detailed analysis of the use of the word "camp" in the article (it occurs 150 times in the article proper alone). It's the section under this one. Hopefully it gives you some ideas. :) AmericanLemming (talk) 03:53, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that the number killed is controversial, but the last two sentences of the first paragraph doesn't flow. Can you rephrase it as a consensus range among sources instead? It's better in the first start of the 'Death count' section. "The victims included men, women, and children" needs to either go or be reworded to more descriptive. As it is not it is a rather cold statement that doesn't help the reader understand the magnitude of the horrors.
In background, first paragraph: "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (German: die Endlösung der Judenfrage)" should link to Final Solution, not Jewish Question, and I'm not sure about the necessity of the German translation given that it's in the Final Solution article.
Most German terms are translated or explained inline, but Wachmänner and Volksdeutsche are footnotes instead.
I've translated Wachmänner but left Volkdeutsche in a note because the explanation is too long to include inline without disrupting the flow of the sentence. AmericanLemming (talk) 07:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Some measurements include imperial equivalents, other do not. It's not consistent.
Quite a few others, my general impression is that the text overall needs another round of massaging to reach the level of brilliant prose.
Another thing: I'd prefer citations to not be placed in the middle of sentences unless it's something very controversial, as they break the flow of reading (the MoS doesn't back me up on this however).
Thank you for for writing this however, I'm not sure I could stomach the hours of research into this ghastly subject. henrik•talk20:35, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. Well, Henrik, you and I really have three options on how to deal with the quality of the prose:
1. You can point out every specific instance where the prose needs to be improved, and I can fix it. Easy for me, lots of work for you.
2. You can point out widespread issues or sections of the article where improvements need to be made, like you've done above, and I can work on those. Easy for you, lots of work for me.
3. You can suggest I request a copyedit from the Guid of Copy-Editors, and they can take care of it. Easy for both of us, but it might take a while for something to act on that request.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to review the article and pointing out things that I missed during my first four copyedits of the article. I imagine that you'll probably choose option number 2, which is fine, since I've got lots of time this week. BTW, you should thank Poeticbent for doing all of the research; I'm just the copy-editor. Four copy-edits and the prose still isn't up to snuff. Argh... AmericanLemming (talk) 04:03, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are 176 instances of the word “camp” in the article when looking at the source code.
There are 3 instances in the infobox, 1 of which refers to Treblinka as a whole and 2 of which refer to Treblinka II.
There are 13 instances in the lead, 8 of which refer to Treblinka II, 1 of which refers to Treblinka I, 1 of which refers to Treblinka as a whole, and 3 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
There are 46 instances in the “Background” section, 14 of which refer to Treblinka II, 5 of which refer to Treblinka I, 1 of which refers to Treblinka as a whole, 14 of which refer to Treblinka II’s three subcamps, and 11 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
There are 19 instances in the “Killing process” section, 13 of which refer to Treblinka II and 6 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
There are 13 instances in the “Organization of the camp” section, 6 of which refer to Treblinka II, 3 of which refer to Treblinka II’s three subcamps, and 4 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
There are 11 instances in the “Treblinka prisoner uprising” section, all 11 of which refer to Treblinka II.
There are 21 instances in the “Operational command of Treblinka II” section, 17 of which refer to Treblinka II and 4 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
There are 6 instances in the “Death count” section, all 6 of which refer to Treblinka II.
There are 11 instances in the “Arrival of the Soviets” section, all 11 of which refer to Treblinka II.
There are 8 instances in the “Treblinka trials” section, 5 of which refer to Treblinka II and 3 of which refer to other camps/Nazi camps in general.
The remainder of the article (the collapsible chart and citations) has 26 instances of the word “camp”, but these are not as relevant as the instances that appear in the article proper.
Adding up the totals above gives 177 instances, more or less consistent with my total count.
while others who ran 30 kilometers (19 miles) nonstop like Sperling - I think I'd leave "nonstop" out.
he was a former boxer with the power to easily deliver knockout punches. - I think I'd leave this out and just prefix his name as "ex-boxer"
"Nonstop" has been removed, and I've reworded the part about Kurt Franz to just talk about him beating prisoners to death and setting his dog on them. The former wording doesn't tell you whether or not he punched prisoners, just that he was good at it, while the current wording removes that ambiguity. AmericanLemming (talk) 01:23, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@FAC coordinators: This FAC has been going on for slightly over five weeks and is currently the third from the bottom of the list. It has received a somewhat ambivalent response; there have been no strong opposes, but neither has it been awash with the quick supports that often characterize the FACs of editors with many FAs under their belts.
Anyway, I thought that I would try my best to summarize the FAC as it currently stands, as that will help both the coordinators and I to gauge the current state of affairs and figure out what needs to happen next. AmericanLemming (talk) 03:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D: comment on “Individuals responsible” table: currently unaddressed; opposes promotion
Brigade Piron: fair number of comments; all addressed, supports promotion
Dank: a few copy-edits and comments on prose; all addressed, supports promotion on prose
Poeticbent: significant contributor; two or three comments; all addressed, strongly supports promotion
Nikkimaria: two image reviews; we have attempted to address her concerns but she has not looked over our changes; opposes promotion
SlimVirgin: general comment on quality of sourcing; half unresolved/half non-actionable
indopug: comment on internal links and inline citation in the lead: non-actionable
Henrik: fair number of comments on prose; I have attempted to address all specific comments; general impression is that the text overall needs another round of massaging to reach the level of brilliant prose
Casliber: two comments on prose: tentative support on prose and comprehensiveness
Other note:
Per Henrik’s comment on the quality of the prose, I requested a GOCE copy-edit on 8 June 2014, leading Folklore1 to copy-edit the article on 11 June 2014.
From the above I get the impression that the article's promotion to FA status is currently hung up on the following three issues: image copyright, quality of the prose, and quality of a few of the sources. My comments on the three are as follows:
1. Image copyright: I believe that Poeticbent and I (more Poeticbent than me, really) have addressed or at least attempted to address all of Nikkimaria's comments regarding image copyright. My understanding is that at this point we are waiting for her to look over our changes and see whether she deems them adequate.
2. Quality of the prose: Only one reviewer has raised significant concerns regarding the prose: Henrik. I've left a note at his talk page asking him to look over my changes, but he has yet to do so. The relevant diff is here: Special:Diff/611164657. Seeing as he's the only one with deep concerns about the prose, I'm inclined to think that his unfavorable view has more to do with stylistic preferences than poorly written sentences. Nevertheless, the article is long enough that it can use as many eyes on it as it can get, so even after the GOCE copy-edit I still plan to message hamilotstone and John and see if they would be willing to take another look.
3. Quality of a few of the sources: SlimVirgin has raised some concerns about the quality of some of the sources. In particular, she is opposed to the use of any newspapers or tertiary sources on the subject. While I understand not using unreliable newspapers as sources (the Daily Mail, for example), not using newspapers at all means that the most recent developments regarding Treblinka would have to be removed, thereby making the article less comprehensive. Anyway, I will start a WP:RS noticeboard posting about newspapers in general and two specific sources that are potentially unreliable: the Jewish Virtual Library and Aktion Reinhard Camps.
The above states what I plan to do to further improve the article and get it promoted by late June/early July. If the coordinators have any advice going forward or anything else they would like to see done (like a source review, for example), know that I greatly appreciate any feedback you give me. AmericanLemming (talk) 03:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@FAC coordinators: , SlimVirgin, and Poeticbent: As the nominator, I request that this nomination be archived. The sourcing issues in particular are going me a while to sort out; you can't replace 30-40 inline citations overnight. Additionally, the "Death count" section needs to be completely reworked; it has all the right information, but it's organized in a very confusing manner. I'm going to add a table on the 15 estimates to help the reader (and me) keep things straight. Lastly, I feel the article would be incomplete without a short section on historiography at the end.
All the above is going to take me a long time to do, especially considering the fact that I'm studying abroad in Spain this month. I'm planning for a late July/early August renomination once all the kinks have been taken care of. Now that I have a much better idea of what the FA criteria entail in practice, I don't see any reason why the article wouldn't pass the third time around, once the sourcing has been improved. AmericanLemming (talk) 21:35, 1 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed Cmguy777 (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Done All points have been addressed.
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